Review Summary: Short Stack's attempt to create mature music fails miserably.
Short Stack is one of Australia's biggest trio's of the 21st century. They exploded onto the scene in 2008 with their single 'Shimmy a Go Go' which hypnotized teenage girls all around the country. Since then they've been awarded Channel V's 'Oz Artist Of The Year', backed up bands like Metro Station and Simple Plan, released a platinum selling single and released one studio album. For a band to win 'Oz Artist Of The Year' and have a platinum selling single, they would have to be decent wouldn't they?
Well don't be fooled. Short Stack is one of the worst things ever to happen to Australian music. In 2009 they released their first studio album,'Stack Is The New Black'. It was overfilled with poorly sung rock songs, poorly played punk songs, annoying pop songs and poorly written melodies. It was a musical disaster, yet all the teenage girls ran out to buy it claiming it was the best album ever. These guys became teen sensations.
In 2010, they decided they wanted to get in touch with their mature creative sides, now being in their 20s. Lead singer Shaun Diviney cut his hair, they all chucked on a tuxedo's and released their second album 'This Is Bat Country' and although it's better then their first attempt, it still sucks.
'This Is Bat Country' is a mixture of Rock, Pop, Punk, Electro and Disco. You can immediately tell it's highly influenced by the music of 80's sensation Billy Idol. One of the problems here is that they try so hard to sound different that they combined so many overused genre's that it all sounds disastrous.
The album opens with 'Bat Country'. It starts off with a stylish guitar riff that sounds quite cool, but leads into the uninspired vocals of front man Shaun Diviney. His voice only really stays in one tone, this becomes quite annoying and boring. It doesn't help when the lyrics he's singing are absolutely awful. You literally cringe when you hear his awful voice sing 'You are a shooting star and I'm a demon'.
Things become twice as pathetic with tracks like 'Werewolves' and 'Are You Afraid Of The Dark'. In the track 'Werewolves', they sound like a low grade Coldplay. Once again nice sounding instrumentals are completely diminished by the vocal disaster that Shaun Diviney calls 'singing'. 'Are You Afraid Of The Dark' is an awful song obviously aimed at teenage girls who like to hear awful similes like 'Lips like a Vampire'.
There are a few slight sparks of potential here. 'Die Young, Stay Pretty' which has a cool instrumental which sounds like a tune you would here in a medieval folk tale. But it's pointless when they ruin it with their song writing skills. 'Jack The Ripper' has a catchy chorus where the vocals actually fit in quite well. 'Jack The Ripper' would actually be a decent song if it wasn't so poorly written.
The rest of the album is more of the same, poorly written garbage. The trio hint at a few cool ideas and twists on modern punk pop music, but they let it fall flat. They attempt to branch out here, but bad vocals and bad lyrics hold them back. The average Australian teenage girl will enjoy this and probably claim it's the best album ever, but the rest of Australia will pan it for what it really is, uninspired, annoying, bullcrap.
