Blameshift: Drop Down
Blameshift
Drop Down
Rating: 45 out of 100
The latest release from the band Blameshift, Drop Down, finds the New York-based band riding on the coattails of the post modern rock scene that attempted to fill the void left by the death of grunge and the mass mating of hip-hop with modern culture. Their mix of neo-punk, aggression, musical dynamics, and blend of vocals and rap create an atmosphere in which they question the meaning of life and how screwed up things are in the world. Tackling such large topics without clear messages and the almost laughable snarling of some of the lyrics puts the band taking a plunge into a wading pool of thought.
Blameshift’s sound may have listeners wondering if the band sat around listening to Linkin Park, Evanescence, Creed, 12 Stones, and Slipknot the entire time they were recording the album. Jenny Mann and Tim Barbour split the vocal duties, which makes things a little more interesting. Neither seems to have had vocal lessons, since their deliveries are a bit jumbled, stalemating the flow of the songs. Mann sounds like a mix of Tanya Donelly (Belly), Amy Lee (Evanescence), and a younger Sam Phillips; not a bad voice, but not the right voice for this type of music. She is not aggressive and sounds more fit to lead some contemporary pop rock-edged outfit. Barbour’s voice fits the band like a glove, even though he sometimes pretends to be a rapper left off a Linkin Park tour bus.
The title track does a good job of setting the mood for the album, with its crunchy, hard-rock sound before descending into some borrowed 80’s dance tune with a poorly mixed Linkin Park rap and vocal duet. Retro-punk shows its dyed hair and ragged clothes on “From Here On In”, although Mann could use voice lessons from Joan Jett regarding how to do punk properly. Repetitious guitars also plague the song and prevent it from ever truly taking off. Blameshift can’t help but draw some comparisons to Evanescence, being a hard-rock band fronted by a female voice, and a song like “Love/Misery” doesn’t help kill those comparisons. “Haunted Dreams”, a power punk Blink 182 clunker, has more stops in it than a city bus, which really kills the flow of the power chords on the chorus. “The Maguire Incident” starts off different from everything else on the album with chorus delay before turning things up a notch with all the distortion they could muster up to turn this song in another Evanscence epic.
Blameshift definitely has the desire to succeed, but still needs to grow as a band to get there. Their half-hearted effort to sound passionate on Drop Down is disappointing and the vocal yells and snarls sound like a temper tantrum. The band doesn’t sound cohesive on the album and made the mistake of producing the album themselves without noticing that they don’t have a sound to call their own. Only time will tell if Blameshift can turn the tide.
Ryan T. White (read more about music at www.thelaterrye.blogspot.com)
For more info about this release: http://www.blameshiftmusic.com/
Drop Down
Rating: 45 out of 100
The latest release from the band Blameshift, Drop Down, finds the New York-based band riding on the coattails of the post modern rock scene that attempted to fill the void left by the death of grunge and the mass mating of hip-hop with modern culture. Their mix of neo-punk, aggression, musical dynamics, and blend of vocals and rap create an atmosphere in which they question the meaning of life and how screwed up things are in the world. Tackling such large topics without clear messages and the almost laughable snarling of some of the lyrics puts the band taking a plunge into a wading pool of thought.
Blameshift’s sound may have listeners wondering if the band sat around listening to Linkin Park, Evanescence, Creed, 12 Stones, and Slipknot the entire time they were recording the album. Jenny Mann and Tim Barbour split the vocal duties, which makes things a little more interesting. Neither seems to have had vocal lessons, since their deliveries are a bit jumbled, stalemating the flow of the songs. Mann sounds like a mix of Tanya Donelly (Belly), Amy Lee (Evanescence), and a younger Sam Phillips; not a bad voice, but not the right voice for this type of music. She is not aggressive and sounds more fit to lead some contemporary pop rock-edged outfit. Barbour’s voice fits the band like a glove, even though he sometimes pretends to be a rapper left off a Linkin Park tour bus.
The title track does a good job of setting the mood for the album, with its crunchy, hard-rock sound before descending into some borrowed 80’s dance tune with a poorly mixed Linkin Park rap and vocal duet. Retro-punk shows its dyed hair and ragged clothes on “From Here On In”, although Mann could use voice lessons from Joan Jett regarding how to do punk properly. Repetitious guitars also plague the song and prevent it from ever truly taking off. Blameshift can’t help but draw some comparisons to Evanescence, being a hard-rock band fronted by a female voice, and a song like “Love/Misery” doesn’t help kill those comparisons. “Haunted Dreams”, a power punk Blink 182 clunker, has more stops in it than a city bus, which really kills the flow of the power chords on the chorus. “The Maguire Incident” starts off different from everything else on the album with chorus delay before turning things up a notch with all the distortion they could muster up to turn this song in another Evanscence epic.
Blameshift definitely has the desire to succeed, but still needs to grow as a band to get there. Their half-hearted effort to sound passionate on Drop Down is disappointing and the vocal yells and snarls sound like a temper tantrum. The band doesn’t sound cohesive on the album and made the mistake of producing the album themselves without noticing that they don’t have a sound to call their own. Only time will tell if Blameshift can turn the tide.
Ryan T. White (read more about music at www.thelaterrye.blogspot.com)
For more info about this release: http://www.blameshiftmusic.com/
posted by Ryan @ 8:17 PM
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