Aug 28 2008
Play> – Play>
Play>
Play>
Self-Released; 2008
Ok folks – we’re going to cast aside the usual random ruminations that typically preface my thoughts on a given album and get right down the music. No muss, no fuss, no frills, and no filler. After the first spin of Play>’s self-titled debut through my car stereo, I was struck by two conflicting thoughts: 1) these lyrics are profoundly cheesy and downright awful; and 2) these guys wholeheartedly believe in what they are singing. I then sent this Portland, OR band’s tunes through my ears a few more times, hoping that there was some sort of ironic twist, some inside joke that I wasn’t quite getting in their music. Surely this band wasn’t singing these songs, with their simplistic rhyme schemes and chord arrangements, with such an intense, sober earnestness, if there wasn’t something deeper, some elaborate practical joke being staged. But I was wrong.
Musically, the band sounds quite non-descript, like a bland union of Cheap Trick, early Matchbox 20, and Counting Crows, minus the abject fun of Cheap Trick, Rob Thomas’ good looks, and Adam Duritz’s skill with emotive wordplay. To top it off, the lyrics come across as truly bad poetry, complete with middle-school-level rhyme patterns (aaaa, aabb, and aaba to name a few more notorious examples), and the singer rarely varies his delivery, choosing to sing/rhyme exactly on the beat. Overall, each song presents the listener with the experience of listening to someone recite sonnets in annoying iambic pentameter over one-dimensional rock/pop/folk motifs. Truly, it’s not my intent to intentionally and crassly slam anyone for their art, but, outside of the fact that their heartfelt delivery is admirable in its intent, it’s difficult for me to find anything positive to say about the maddeningly, barely average music of Play>.
September 11th, 2008 at 13:59