Review Summary: Debut Album from Bryce Avary's The Rocket Summer which shows must in the way of promise but ultimately fails to really hit the mark.
Bryce Avary, and his one man band
The Rocket Summer, seem destined for stardom. He combines infectious pop hooks with splendid song writing and some good instrumentation. He made this,
The Rocket Summer’s first full length album at the age of twenty and minus a few backing vocals here or there recorded all the music himself. That being guitars, vocals, keyboards and drums. Pretty impressive seen as he wrote most of this as a teenager. Music wise
Calendar Days sounds like the album
Michael Jackson would make if he abandoned his descent into madness and went on a
Something Corporate bender. At times it’s a refreshing change from all the “slit my wrists and black my eyes,” pop rock that dominates the market but on other occasions it all seems too forced and sugar coated for my liking. Bryce often seems unsure of where he is going with the band. His stand out material is undoubtedly the faster, upbeat tracks however he seems convinced that he can pull off the slow numbers and unfortunately I have to disagree with him. His voice is just too poppy for them and as much as he tries he is not
Andrew McMahon (Something Corporate) and neither is he
Chris Carrabba (Dashboard Confessional).
In short bursts the slow tempo rhythms work well, take
Cross Your Heart for example. Probably the strongest song on
Calendar Days, it has a slow start with Bryce singing in his sugary emotional way over some clean strummed chords before the song enters into a faster passage which sounds similar to
Ben Folds. Compared with the follow to this album, 2005’s
Hello Good Friend,
Calendar Days is a weak effort. Although
Hello Good Friend is no masterpiece by any means, it is effortlessly superior to
Calendar Days. Lyrically the album is very uninventive and cliché, where as Bryce improved significantly in this area on the follow up album. The opening lines to
Cross Your Heart illustrate the lack of lyrically creativity,
“Cross my heart, hope to die, I swear I won't say what happened that night, so starting today things are gonna be all right.” I want to like it, I really do but it could easilly have been ripped from an
Aiden or
Hawthorne Heights song and that can never be a good thing.
Both
This Is Me and
Skies So Blue follow in a similar vein, treading little new ground but having an infectious endearing quality all the same.
Saturday has an excellent hook to it even if lyrically it’s little above a joke,
“And yeah if only it was Saturday, Saturday, things would be better in every way, every way, and I would be ok.” If this was pure pop music then I can excuse such blatant lack of meaning in songs, but with
The Rocket Summer it feels likes he is trying to write deep and meaningful songs whilst balancing that with his pop grooves but he quite simply fails miserably in the lyrical department. The album then moves into ballad country which as I’ve already mentioned is not his strong point.
She’s My Baby is possibly even worse than the title would suggest although
That’s So You which is simply vocals and an acoustic guitar is actually very respectable, I still maintain his voice is too poppy for this kind of material and that he is not making the best of his abilities but by his standards it’s quite a good little song. Luckily the album doesn’t completely fall out into piano ballad after piano ballad and
TV Family which ends the album showcases everything good about the
Rocket Summer.
Bryce should definitely be given credit for his originality. While he doesn’t exactly revolutionize pop rock music he certainly has both an original voice and overall sound. If you’ve never heard of the
Rocket Summer I strongly urge you to check out
Hello Good Friend first but on the other hand if you’re a fan I don’t doubt you will find this album to be better than how I have described.
Recommended Tracks
Cross My Heart
TV Family
That's So You
