Review Summary: Losing yourself in everything people expect of you, maybe next time you shouldn't try so hard.
Everybody lives with a bit of identity crisis, growing up and attending school being the big motivator here in this case. The styles literally change right before your eyes, and it’s the immaturity of youth that brings forth those harsh remarks that one is not cool enough because they’re not doing what others want or expect them too. As humans though, we learn to grow and become ourselves, walk our own path and trend ground not yet discovered, that is if you have the passion to do it.
Illuminator seems to be an all too popular case of identity crisis, as if the band must do exactly what they think people want to hear and that’s what is going to help them further their career.
Well, sorry to tell you, it plain and simply just doesn’t work like that.
No Bragging Rights has been around long enough to sit back and watch as this style of music changes and this genre becomes popular, so much has changed since their grand beginnings back in 2005. Music just isn’t the same, and maybe this is just me expecting too much, but you’d think they would’ve learned a bit or two being on those front lines of war. They started off great, capturing their own style and not exactly opening doors but allowing enough light to shine through to bring a smile to many fans of their particular genre.
Illuminator seems to be the bands own personal experimentation, to see if fans old or new could handle not so much a drastic change, but a noticeable one at best.
Forcing themselves into one dimensional execution, it just feels like they’re trying way too hard. Newly brought forth by the band is an overabundance of breakdowns, and it’s not even like they’re trying to make them fit their style or stand out within their sound, their just built on poor laziness. Building up with simple drum or guitar rhythms, it just all feels way too forced. let’s take the opening track for example, ‘Beautiful and Spineless’ isn’t a bad song, and up until the final 30 seconds works extremely well with pulling you into the album without feeling overtaken by the ordinary. That is until the final twenty seconds of the song in which the band feels the need to chug things down a bit and add an out of place breakdown just to feel complete.
It comes down to the exact same way instrumentally, nothing here gives you the ability to reason why each member brings their fullest to the table. It’s between the simple minded guitar riffs and average drum patterns where that laziness is ultimately defined. It’s really disappointing too because how hard could it be give yourself a reason to stand out as one in your own band. Instead, everything blends together in one giant bland sound and never seems to want to separate themselves from the rest. The only thing here worth looking out for is the vocals, it’s not even in the screams in which Mike Perez steals the spotlight, it’s his mighty set of vocal chords. He has a powerful voice with a somewhat good range, but when placed next to most other singers in the genre he runs laps around them. Despite that little lack of prominent range, he has room to improve without having to completely kill himself over getting a slight bit better.
It doesn’t take all that much to better yourself in something you do, and that’s what No Bragging Rights needs to do. Get over what the latest trends are, forget about what people want or expect from you and instead surprise them with everything they least expect you to do. That’s the big key here and the major picture this band needs to take some time to realize.
Illuminator is certainly a drop off the wrong cliff here, and whether or not they feel the impact of hitting the ground from that kind of height is up to them, but for now falling away is all their doing.
