Despite a friend's strong recommendation, this album is crap, unoriginal, and uninspiring. After one listen through, I thought, "Where's the band?" proving that when you have a perfectly great band as Rob does with Matchbox Twenty, you go and get all gung-ho with your big ego from being front-man and lead songwriter with talented musicians that a few years ago recorded one of the best albums out there, get reduced to an overproduced, directionless has-been.
I was really looking forward to the next Matchbox 20 album, Rob spoiled that ideal. The edginess you found on Matchbox's last album is completely gone. The piercing gutty guitars, super groovy walking bass lines, anthemic choruses and choirs, powerful lyrics, all supported by dynamic, sharp, and smashing drums really made that album awesome. You'd think Rob would learn something from it. Did he? Nope.
Gone are all those great things I mentioned. What's left? It sounds like NKOTB trying to be Menudo at times. You remember Menudo don't you? Yeah, Ricky Martin when he had no pubic. It's like Rob was trying to reinvent what he did with Santana, but just fails miserably. The vocals are forced around poor arrangements and bad idealess production centered on "cool beats" from a soulless drum machine with rhythms sounding like they were downloaded for your cellphone.
Needless to say, this album, which I don't know the name of, 'cause well, it's not memorable, is one disappointing effort. There's some not bad songs, but I don't remember how they go.
Snaky gives Rob Thomas' new album 1.52 fists out of 5.
1 comment:
That's higher than I thought you'd give it.
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