Review Summary: Pretty drastic improvement over the last effort. Lyrics are still terrible though. Also, not obscure/faux-intellectual enough for most Sputnik users' tastes.
When "Doctor" was first released on the band's Myspace, many people were shocked to learn that Shaant Hacikyan was a male. Even more shocking was the fact that Cute is What We Aim For actually have a bassist (even after that slot notoriously "rotated" over and over). But most shocking of all was that this could actually be classified as a "pop-punk" song, whereas you would have a hard time slapping even that label on their debut, Same Blood Rush with a New Touch.
The album opens with single "Practice Makes Perfect," and it's the track that most resembles their old work. Still, producer John Feldmann has given this band a bigger and less whiney sound, and it's clear even here. As mentioned above, Hacikyan voice sounds less high-pitched and feminine. And even better, the chorus is as infectious as the bands' sound should have been on their first album; for a band that labeled its self pop-rock it was hard to find anything resembling a good pop-hook on their debut. Here, the hooks never stop.
Granted, a Cute is What We Aim For song is a Cute is What We Aim For song. Their upbeat pop sound is still identifiably "Cute," and if you can't reconcile yourself with that then this won't change your mind. But every track tries a new dressing on this feel good pop-punk, some of them cliché, some of them original but all of them fun.
The straight-up rockers "Doctor" and "The Lock Down Denial" are easily the best tracks. Their ability to sound raucous is pretty surprising, and at times they almost sound threatening, especially on the closing breakdowns of "Doctor" and "Miss Sobriety." Well, you know, not Sex Pistols-threatening. Like, New Found Glory-threatening. But yeah.
"Loser," is a good, if a tad cliché', pop-punk mediation on the mentality of those people we all know who enjoy insulting others for the sake of their own insecurities. "A loser can win whenever they want to, all that they gotta, gotta do, is bring you down." Not a stroke of lyrical genius, but it is a catchy way of formulating an idiom that still delivers a valid message that might help some of the miserable snobs that nobody in the real world actually likes here on Sputnik.
Elsewhere, the band branches out. No, not kidding. "Hollywood," featuring horns and a Coldplay-esque (?!) phrasing, borders on the absurd, though it gets props for ambition. You'll also find some a cappella and synthy dance-beats. Don't ask.
The ending track, the faux-epic "Time," will no doubt be blaring out of the speakers of thousands teenagers' bedrooms after an August breakup, and for that it does its job well. The acoustic-electric buildup is impressive. But you can't help but shake the feeling that the band thinks they put together a far greater song than they actually did.
Actually, you get that feeling the whole album. True, this a drastic improvement over their last album. But this isn't "classic" material, and judging by the press releases and interviews from this band recently you'd think that they just recorded the next Nevermind.
That's impossible because the lyrics still suck. I would go into detail, but why? While the subject matter is more mature, they are still written in a childish, radio-friendly form that tend to make some people nauseous. And while some of them are fun to yell along to in the car (the chorus to "Doctor"), they're still pretty cheap.
In the end, it's refreshing to see such a drastic improvement on a sophomore effort. Every song does its job pretty well. The problem is that, plainly, the lyrics are bad. I've come to ignore that problem in this genre. But is that a good thing? Has pop-punk fully exhausted all of its lyrical potential? Those are the questions that came to my mind after listening to this. But really, that's not their problem. They just wanted to make a cool pop punk record, and on this level they succeeded.
But hey! Why the hell would you want to listen to this, anyway? Shouldn't you be listening to some of the "great" music the people here at Sputnik are hawking every week? Shouldn't you be feeding your false view of yourself as an elite music aficionado who knows better than everybody else? Go pick up some Protest the Hero or Have A Nice Life or Thrice, because seriously, this stuff is for 14 year old girls that aren't smart like Sputnik users. We all know that there is no way you actually
like it. It's really because you are somehow uneducated and we, my friend, will fix that!
