Review Summary: Flatline indie rock
Remo Drive are either extremely self aware, or their attempts at irony have backfired on them as their album titles function as self-fulfilling prophecies. If you’re looking for the band’s best collection of songs, look no further than debut album
Greatest Hits. Follow up
Natural, Everyday Degradation showed the band degrading from a catchy, energetic emo-tinged punk outfit to something so bland it’s hard to recall a single moment or melody from the record. Now, the most recent full length offering
A Portrait of An Ugly Man is… well, it’s certainly not pretty.
Released merely a year after
Natural, Everyday Degradation, a record so insignificant that the most memorable thing about it remains the band’s tantrum on Twitter aimed at anyone who dare criticise it, this new album should feel like damage control. Yet, Remo Drive pass up the chance to redeem themselves by either attempting to recapture the magic of previous works or embracing an adventurous new sound, and instead opt for doubling down on being as boring as humanly possible.
A Portrait of An Ugly Man is a slice of flatline indie rock, managing to fit an impressively small amount of interesting ideas into its 40-minute runtime. Lead single ‘Star Worship’ is a perfect example of this, successfully sneaking in two choruses that fail to distinguish themselves from the verses whatsoever. Yet, when the band manage to craft a chorus that does separate itself from the rest of the song on ‘The Ugly Man Sings’, you’ll find yourself wishing it didn’t as vocalist Erik Paulson sings
‘Often I ponder / How to send you back into your mother’. Yikes.
Occasionally, Remo Drive appear to be on the brink of creating something interesting. ‘Dead Man’ showcases a more versatile vocal performance from Paulson, with a dynamic ‘start-stop’ riff making for a much needed change of pace. Even if the chorus doesn’t fully achieve the grand, stadium-sized sound it’s aiming for, the song is as good as
A Portrait of An Ugly Man gets. Similarly, ‘The Night I Kidnapped Remo Drive’ is a vaguely ambitious attempt at an indie rock epic, yet winds up sounding like a Killers B-side due to the band’s unwillingness to actually
go somewhere with their 70s-inspired sound. The song’s final minute seems tailor-made to piss people off, blue-balling listeners by presenting tension-building drums and low, suspenseful vocals… before abandoning these and, naturally, favouring yet another lame chorus.
Either terribly or brilliantly sequenced, closer ‘Easy as That’ might be the most memorable song on the album. However, this is not due to a catchy vocal melody or above average instrumentation. No, the track distinguishes itself from the bland, indie rock nothingness of the album because it sounds like The Wiggles briefly joined the band during the chorus to provide a last-resort, semi-intriguing moment. Yet, as boring as most of
A Portrait of An Ugly Man is, due to crystal clear production work and passable performances throughout, it’s definitely a listenable record. It’s just a damn shame Remo Drive are absolutely terrified of doing something interesting.
