Project Rocket "New Years Revolution" CD
[Uprising]
This band features members of Fall Out Boy, 7 Angels 7 Plagues, and Spitalfield... which means very little to me because I've only heard one or two songs from one of those bands and I was left unimpressed. This is basically pop punk/emo or whatever that has the potential to be okay, but the songwriting is pretty generic and lacking in energy, and the recording isn't right for what they're doing. They need one of those polished production jobs that has a lot of density and punch, but the sound here is off. The guitars are too dry and flat, the bass isn't audible enough, the vocals lack fullness... I don't know. The drums sound alright, but again, there's no real punch. But that's not a big deal, it doesn't sound awful, the songs just don't do anything for me. I've just heard this stuff done a lot better than these guys are doing it. I like it when they break out some pseudo metal early-90's Fat Wreck Chords types of riffs, but the generic three chord pop punk stuff isn't catching my ear, and they tend to stick what that stuff 95% of the time. The tempos tend to stay in the same general area as well, so variety isn't really working in their favor. However, I love the artwork. The booklet and traycard contain excellent illustrations of airplanes and related imagery in stark black with some nice splotches and shading in gradations of brown, not unlike a stylized comic book or something. No lyrics are included, in fact there's barely any text. Most of the inside of the booklet is straight black, with a little bit of text and a subtle high contrast image of a head/shoulder on one panel. The lyrics I can make out are, of course, about girls and all that shit that goes along with this genre most of the time. "Your kisses cause cancer..." Nothing exciting. With a better recording I might like this a lot more, though I doubt it. I'd suggest working on the songwriting as well as the production. Potential... but no dice just yet. (4/10)
Running time - 42:34, Tracks: 11
[Notable tracks: The Pen and Paper Cliché, Slow Motion Suicide]
Uprising Records - http://www.uprisingrecords.com

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