Review Summary: Somehow, not yet the death toll, it would seem.
Name me a band that has been at it since the seventies and is still of decent quality. As unfortunate as it is, there are only as many such precedents, and even then, they are not without their missteps. Now envision a project that even in its prime has been hardly the talk of the town. And from there, derive an idea of just what level of quality might their music be today. And that’s Modern English for you, a band that John Foxx once described as “Who?”
Well over a handful of decades into their career and they are still scraping the barrel.
Take Me to the Trees is not offensively bad or even relatively disappointing. It just isn’t outstanding in any real way. Track after track you are bombarded with underwhelming song-writing and oddly deformed, sonically rippling production that makes everything you hear even more off-putting.
And that’s really sad, considering that the songs like “Trees” or “Dark Cloud” did feel like they have the potential of turning actually fruitful, but the passionless production and instrumentation just kills any possible enjoyment. The only actually successful moments are “Something’s Going On”, which does go through rather unengaging build-up, but manages to turn satisfying, and the closer “It Don’t Seem Right”, which, in turn, feels slightly cheesy and silly, but at least delivers on its (forgive the tautology) cheesiness and silliness in a pleasant way.
If it wasn’t obvious by the previous sentences or by the glowing number 2.5 above, this album is not good. But it is ungood in a way that isn’t enraging. It is just a band that is a bit too deep into their career, still trying to survive, serenading the generic, just as they did back in the day. Only this time with even less enthusiasm or energy.
