Never have I been so disappointed by a purchase of an album and embarrassed to say that I did actually purchase it. While
Hawthorne Height’s first single
Ohio is for Lovers was promising and made me think that this could be an average to good album. I mainly bought this album because the band had toured with Silverstein, a band that I think, while not original or scene defining in any way are a band that show they can write some good songs. Let me just say that these two bands are nothing alike, Silverstein has some enjoyable hooks and riffs while Hawthorne Heights has nothing even close to those things. I’ve done this type of review before and I think that it fits well with this album. So here is a The Good (average), The Bad, and The Singles review of Hawthorne Heights-The Silence in Black and White.
The Good (average)-Life on Standby & Speeding Up the Octaves
The first song on the album
Life on Standby is not necessarily good, but is a tolerable song that has a decent intro, and some above average music. The main problem with this song, like all of the other songs is the badly written lyrics. If the lyrics were better this would be actually a really good song. At least his voice isn’t as annoying as it is on other songs. The music isn’t that great, but compared to other songs it is actually above average most of the time. The screaming isn’t really that good, but is also a lot better compared to their other songs. The last song on the album is
Speeding Up the Octaves and no it’s the other good song just because it’s the last song. It starts of quietly like others, but comes in with a cool beat to it and some descent (as in average) singing from JT. The chorus is actually pretty catchy as well and other parts to are actually pretty good as well. If Hawthorne Heights had some songs that were like this, this would be an average debut album and I would say that they have potential. But…
The Bad- Well, let’s see, everything else pretty much
First of there is the pitiful attempts at screaming and to make maters worse the regular singing JT is irritating and makes me want to shriek most of the time. An example of the horrid singing from JT is the beginning of
The Transition where he sounds like a girl and an example of the horrible screaming is, well, just pick almost any song. The overall quality of each song is very poor, mainly because the songs aren’t well put together and the music is always very repetitive. Most songs sound like each other and the lyrics are always about relationships of course and even when it seems that they aren’t, the lyrics are still extremely bad.
The Singles- Ohio is for Lovers (1st) & Niki FM (2nd)
Ohio is for Lovers would actually be on the good list if it weren’t also a single because it is an average song, which means good compared to this album. The song starts out with some single guitar picking and some drums with JT singing about, you guessed it a relationship. Anyone who argues that Hawthorne Heights isn’t an emo band it is obvious that they are with lyrics such as,
“So cut my wrists and black my eyes, so I can fall asleep tonight or die because you kill me”. There now no one can argue they aren’t emo. Anyways this song remains consistent at least where most of the bands songs aren’t and is a descent song really. Now as for their other single
Niki FM it is probably one of the worst songs on the album and is also one of the worst put together songs I have ever heard in my life. The parts that repeat don’t make sense to me at some points and the chorus is absolutely irritating. The music is rather bland and totally unoriginal. Most people on the site will probably agree with me about this.
So that is my review of Hawthorne Heights debut album under that name. It is really a mess of an album and if anyone wants to buy an album that is like the song
Ohio is for Lover then get
Silverstein’s new album
Discovering the Waterfront. I warrant this album as a 1 out of 5. DO NOT VOTE AGAINST THIS IF YOU LOVE THIS BAND AND NEG IT OUT OF SPITE! YOU WILL BE BANNED!
