Review Summary: Good things are worth waiting for. Too bad this isn’t that good.
The old adage that good things are worth waiting for would seem to imply that The Letter Black’s sophomore album ‘Rebuild’ should have been pretty darn good. The record was originally set to release in April of 2013. However, the band postponed the release date all the way back to November in order to polish the final product. The first single for ‘Rebuild’ was released in October of the previous year making the wait between the first song and the actual album 13 months. This might have been forgivable had the end result been something amazing. Instead, we received a collection of mostly average songs with a few standout tracks.
In regards to musical style, it seems that many rock bands progressively mellow with each proceeding record. To their credit, The Letter Black mostly avoids this with an intensity similar to their prior album. Lead vocalist, Sarah Anthony’s screams are present throughout much of the album with her husband, Mark’s guitar riffs backing her up. While there’s nothing groundbreaking about the style it’s mostly solid rock/hard rock instrumentation. Its unoriginality, however, becomes tiring but it’s not bad in and of itself. If there’s a quibble with the overall sound it’s mostly with Sarah’s vocals. While she has some of the best screams within the female fronted rock category, she also has an annoying, amateurish whine in her voice that would seem to better suite a pop-based genre. Her voice is often hard to take seriously.
Where this album suffers most, though, is in its lyrics. ‘Rebuild’ strives to offer hope to those feeling alone, afraid and oppressed. While this ambition is certainly commendable, The Letter Black goes about it in the most unoriginal, trite, hokey sort of way. In ‘Break Out’ Sarah caterwauls her way through with the lyrics “To find your voice sometimes you need to shout out/And let them know exactly what you're all about/Make some noise and never let it drown out/This is what it takes no one will be shutting you out.” A good message perhaps but it ends up being a rehash of what we’ve already heard numerous times before from other bands. Poor lyrics wouldn’t be such a big deal except it causes a breakdown between the artist and the listener. Most people hope to feel some sort of emotion from what they listen to or they at least want to relate to what’s being conveyed by the artist. The Letter Black falls short in that for the majority of the record they fail to deliver any sort of emotional connection to the listener.
That being said, there are a few highlights on the disk. Opening single, ‘Sick Charade’ proves to be a credible rocker with crunchy guitars and Sarah’s shrieks and screams permeating most of the way through. The last two songs ‘Devil On Your Back’ and ‘Branded’ are also amongst the heavier songs and have a better, less awkward flow than a number of the other tracks. The ballad ‘Outside Looking In’ showcases their softer side and is one of the few songs that manage to establish some rapport between the artist and the audience.
In the end, ‘Rebuild’ suffers because the instrumentation, while mostly good, isn’t enough to overcome the hokey lyrics and cheesy vocals. All of this together makes the record feel unintentional and half-hearted. It’s not bad, per se, but if good things are worth waiting for then this wasn’t really worth the wait.
