Review Summary: The band with cats. Also, a band with pop. Cat-pop. All cats have the same attitude. All WAS songs share that characteristic as well.
Have you ever caught a baseball in your lifetime? Yes. Probably. How does it feel to grasp that rock-solid sphere in a dusty mitt after it spinning at you at about forty or so miles per hour? When you catch it, at least, it does feel pretty damn good for a second or so, then you must spend the next few deciding if you should toss it back or keep the ball and call it a game. Catchy music is the same way; if you listened to
We Are Scientist's pop-rock, you would be given one song's time to decide whether or not their style is preferable above other pop music types to your own ears. One song, that is, because on this album
We Are Scientists thought the formula out as if it were a petty first-grade mathematical one, and as a result of that a slew of mediocrity ensued.
Combining extremely simplistic guitar and bass riffs with cliche' drumming technique, instrumental is surprisingly the powerhouse of this album. I mean, the voices are nothing special. Just the norm for a New York City indie band, or NYC individual in general: usually somewhat high-pitched and quite prominent. We Are Scientist's employed a spark-like instrumental jam on this album, meaning the vocal's backing was less of a wall of sound and more a spongey net. A spongey net that rebounds the many sounds of the human voice from their center all the way out to an audience somewhere. There are certain musicians who would seem perfectly alright if their vocal talent was focused on as a one and
only aspect of their music; listening to the voice alone. WAS are sadly the opposite. I say a net, because instead of a wall to casually lean on, this band requires something more -- in specifics, something to fall back onto. A sonic-net.
We Are Scientist's apparently are not a group for amazing guitar etiquette. Although already stated, in order to create a fine urban pop sound, the group learned a book or two of beginner's guitar and now you'll find all of those first seven basic chords you learned on your dad's acoustic and the immediately off the ground bass talent. You know, if any of you have ever picked up and played a bass guitar, its certainly true that
anyone can play bass. And when that
anybody joins a band, the creativity that follows with single pounding notes flows, and upbeat music is bred. Whatever may seem like above-average bass guitar endeavors are all coolly thrown down picked lines. Speed does not equal talent, speed makes pop -- anything remotely speedy when it comes to music is the first heard, so all can be classified under pop. WAS realizes this, and not a single ballad-worthy track is to be found on this record, no matter how hard you scourge those lyrics. Which aren't bad at all for a pop-band. They all tell briefly small tales; stories of things that never happened but in reality happen to everyone. Relations galore.
Slowly and easily growing old,
With Love and Squalor does not hold up to all of the standards of good pop-rock music. However early it is in this band's career, the trio should still move to impress. Whilst marching to the beat of their own drum, We Are Scientists head for too long in the same direction. The dance floor would welcome this band as it's own child, though -- if you ever see an active crowd at a WAS show you'll know what I mean. But having your fans jump up and down, side to side for you is not the key to musical victory, which is not what this band seems to be aiming for. That kills them. A mistake in any type of music is creating it solely for the purpose of live enjoyment. The fans are imperative to your success, though you yourself should as an artist forge for personal reasons. We Are Scientist's lyrics, instrumental talent and vocal display all sum up to one solution: the listener.
User friendly as they may be, We Are Scientist's still recorded an excruciatingly repetitive album that pertains to dance moreso than the rock side of it. Pop-rock is not just for keen placement amongst upbeat radio tunes. There is an art to be found in pop, and this just isn't part of it.
Despite the obvious filler and same old-hat tracks,
With Love and Squalor does have positive poses littered throughout. There is of course pop-love to be found in the track
Lousy Reputation, I'm thinking is the finest song of the entire collection. Sadly, LR is the blueprint from the beginning to the end, and I'm saying that because it is without a doubt the greatest track here. But thats not necessarily an full-blown problem, as it is very fun to listen to, making most of the album the same way. When one song is copied and pasted over and over to create a theme, it can either be average listening or stinkingly grotesque sounds of the pits of hell. Of course, if the latter were the case I would have reviewed this long ago to let know all the putrid *** to be discovered in listening to this album. Not in the memo, that is.
So it is an average record. Average, tolerable, so-so, *seesaws hand from side to side*, whatever you prefer to describe that as. Kind of like having sex with somebody and afterwards realizing they used the same positions and techniques as last night, but only this time you had to pay them. Would suck, would it not? Yes it would, as does some of this album. The majority of the choruses, the instrumental lay-downs, and the cover-art just plain suck. Not that the picture has anything to do with the actual music, but if it's supposedly worth a thousand words, those words must be as repetitious as the music itself.
Songs worth dancing to:
Lousy Reputation
Callbacks
The Great Escape
