Review Summary: Some potential found but that doesn’t justify this album, because of the sequence or mesh it follows it has to be counted as a whole...
[A Band Rebuilt For Fans Of The General Radio Malaise…]
Suddenly, I encountered myself reading some reviews on the internet because of the unfamiliar feel I had waiting for A Thousand Suns release, I noticed almost no contrast with some over-praising it, few trashing the album and now I must say I’ve heard it several times and I can only think of being objective as possible.
Minutes To Midnight was just a teaser preparing us for this ambitious release that falls badly into an ambiguous eclectic commercial album.
When I first heard The Catalyst I had the first thought:they’re selling out, but still I was impressed with the lyrics. And then they released Wretches and Kings which was an impulse of saving this a place in my head, well done...
Sadly I felt fooled, the little hope I built was thrown away when listening half of the album and I can assure the only well polished songs are the two mentioned before, with a hint of Iridescent and Burning In The Skies which are decent but can even fall unnoticed.
As for the rest of the album I’m tempted to call it “all over the place” or “crazy experiments with political themes and no musical objective”, both very accurate. But in detail six of the “songs” are fragments (including two intros), the rest are segues containing speeches and effects…let’s sum it up in mood and noise (surreal, ha yeah right…).
This leaves nine real songs left, in which one of them Robot Boy drags uninterestingly as a huge interlude which is followed by another boring one, remark The Messenger an acoustic over-sung short piece. As for the seven rest… my enticement won me, are nothing more than experimental tracks that sound rushed, hardly feels complete, there are some interesting parts along these seven songs but only the four mentioned above seem like fully produced tracks.
This is not innovation, in my opinion, it’s nothing more than fitting in modern music standards, accessible is what they are truly aiming for, “synth-pop” and “electronic rock music” is the plate that music industry is serving now and they want to be in it.
In all honesty, not a fair release, despite all the flattering I’m pretty sure real rock listeners will skip this one out…
