Review Summary: Amateurish, but with some redeeming moments.
The Winter Passing is a pop-rock band from Ireland, and this is their second album, ‘New Ways of Living’.
While this is not ‘bad’ album per se, the whole thing smacks of ‘amateur hour’ and a complete lack of ambition. Now, I don’t like to be too harsh but this album feels like the rock band equivalent of something that would be turned out by a reality TV show like ‘The Voice’ or ‘(country) has talent’. I suspect some of the band members are decent musicians but then majority of this is driven by polite, simple guitar riffs, a few power chords, vapid lyrics about ‘life sucks’, the same melodies and production that has come out of pop-punk-emo-whatever for the last 20-30 years. It, for all honesty’s sake, sounds like a bunch of teenagers started a band, who try to sound like other bands they listen to... but they’re actually adults. The interesting thing is that every now and then the guitarist throws in a fine lick, and it makes you wonder if they could craft something more interesting.
‘New ways of living’ brings nothing new to the table that you haven’t heard before, though that is not so bad in itself. Since there is not much in the way of musicianship, and since most of the songwriting is generally uninspiring, perhaps the band brings a lot of personality and enthusiasm, as a saving grace... well they do a bit, it feels like they try and bring a ‘rock persona’ to the music, but what this band needs is more interesting songwriting, not more enthusiasm. They have two vocalists; the male vocalist is a bit dull, but the female vocalist has quite a nice voice.
That is then basic summary of ‘New ways of living’, but you can read on for a more thorough look at the songs.
The opening ‘Ghost thing’ feels a bit substance-less with fairly predictable melody and typical teenage angst lyrics like ‘I can’t believe in anything or anyone, what’s wrong with me’ ... but after the chorus there’s a really good guitar riff... anyway, they always bring a lot of energy, I can’t deny that. The second song is a bit slower paced, and brings more teenage angst with ‘they’re all out to get me, I don’t know if I can do this anymore’. Again there is occasionally some exciting guitar in the background but not enough to make the song interesting. The third song is more of the same really, more teenage angst played over generic pop-punk riffs, the song ‘New York’ doesn’t bring anything interesting either. The first half of this album closes with ‘Crybaby’... they definitely bring a lot of enthusiasm to this song, the girls vocals are dubbed in multiple times as she chants ‘don’t cry! nobody likes a crybaby!’, and she definitely tries to bring a lot of sass to the songs, but this song feels kind of stupid - like some teenage girls bickering in the playground.
The second half of the album has more ambitious songwriting, but not enough. The Tipperary song is a brief, reflective ballad, and while a change of pace, doesn’t bring much interest. ‘Resist’ is a better song, and while the lyrics are still somewhat whiny, this song is less formulaic and the chorus finds the two singers harmonising very well. After a quiet intro, there’s a pretty good guitar riff on ‘something to come home to’, and the lyrics are a bit more interesting, about finding love.
The last two songs are the best. ‘I want you’ is a love ballad with the female vocalist giving a very heartfelt performance, over a gentle rolling guitar background. This song feels very sincere, with lyrics 'I want you to know I’ll always love you’. The closing ‘Mind Yourself’ is an ambitious track falling just shy of 7 minutes, and make you reflect on the talent in the band. The song begins with some pensive guitar riffs, and the chorus soars almost majestically with emotionally driven lyrics about ‘don’t let me down’ countered with the more cynical ‘I let you go a long time ago’ from the guy singer. This is rather heartfelt and a strong end to what was a generally disappointing album.
My final thoughts are that if this band could dump the whole ‘tortured teen’ lyrics and chucked the emo-pop-punk songwriting formula book, they might actually make something really good, but when they stick to that formula and style of songwriting, they sound like whiny teens. I still don’t really understand why the playing is so generally amateurish when it’s clear they could play a lot better. Anyway, this is only the second album, maybe they have something better coming out in the future.
