I should've known from the crappy band name that this would sort of stink, but I kind of liked bits and pieces of the lyrics and the layout, so I tried to give it the benefit of the doubt. They call themselves "something between Dinosaur Jr.'s wall of guitar buzz and Richard Hell's verbal bite", but aside from a few admittedly cool guitar riffs that could arguably be compared to Dinosaur Jr., and an indeed strained "singing" performance that is more of a "verbal bite" than anything, I wouldn't really come to that conclusion on my own. It's basically ultra raw indie rock 'n' roll with a mix of straightforward chord progressions, jangly guitar textures, slightly noisier elements, and a good sense of melody. There are definitely some quirky guitar parts with weird note choices, bends, or layers that I truly enjoy, but the vocals are completely awful, and I hate the way the lyrics are all forced to rhyme, which really makes the content come off as hokey. Believe it or not I'm not bothered by the rawness of the recording because I dig the fuzzy guitar tones, and the mix isn't that bad, so you can actually hear everything else as well. It's definitely muddy and unbalanced at times, but it's listenable. If the vocals weren't so fuckin' irritating and the songwriting was a little more focused I might like it, though it's hard to really gauge the songwriting since the singing is such a hindrance to the listen. In addition to the core there are some cool bluesy passages with semi clean tones (notably in the unlisted instrumental piece), some frantic tempo changes with faster vocal patterns that work a little better to mask the annoying rhyming, and a few other niceties that spice things up, and I'm not opposed to that variety either. But "Tear Party" and "And I'll Use My Last Wish" are fucking terrible songs. Man, just awful. Get rid of that stuff. As mentioned, the layout's not so bad. The back cover isn't so hot (poor choice of imagery), but everything else is nice and consistent, as well as fairly interesting. I especially enjoy the text-free cover, which is definitely the most visually appealing aspect of the release. Lyrically the tracks are somewhat cryptic, and I'm sort of 50/50 on them because despite some great lines and interesting wording, the forced rhyming really breaks up the flow and gets irritating: "You're an open wound, and we've sodium chloride darts, We've got a sweet tooth for your sweet little heart, And you're so boring that no one will pity you, Your sob story goes straight to video..." I'm sort of confused in the end in that I can't tell how seriously I'm supposed to take this. A part of me thinks it's kind of a joke, and another part of me thinks it's definitely serious but their sense of humor just isn't really being handled properly. I certainly find Complicated Shirt to be an awful band name, I can't deny that. There's absolutely promise to be found in this music, but the vocal work and lyrical approach definitely need work. Get rid of all that rhyming and find a vocalist who could do this music justice, everything else would fall into place I think. They're only charging $6 for this and it's a professionally pressed CD, so I really admire that decision. They're putting the right effort into it, I just think they need to focus more attention on some of the surrounding aspects of what they already have in place.
[self-released]
Running time - 32:21, Tracks: 10
[Notable tracks: most of them have their moments, but none specifically hit me]
Complicated Shirt - http://www.complicatedshirt.com
