Down To Earth Approach - Come Back to You

Rating

single starhalf star

RIYL

Boys Like Girls
Sherwood
Self Against City

Label

Vagrant Records

Tracklist

1. Waiting
2. Frustrated
3. Anyone Else
4. Just Say So
5. Night Moves
6. You Don’t Need Love
7. The Wizard
8. See You
9. I Talk to Me
10. Reunion
11. When You’re Around

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Popularity has become predictable, especially now that trends become solidified commercially. Like teenagers on a shopping spree at Hollister, predictability comes every time they add “like” and “uhm” to their sentences. Music, now more like a game of numbers, is pre-set into Hollister media players with artists ranging from Fall Out Boy and Boys Liked Girls to Cartel. The entourage of popular punk bands captures the hearts of millions, or at least their wallets.

Don’t think most bands' success involves any bit of integrity at all. Really, the formula to popularity, and a heaping pile of cash, is very simple. For one approach, just follow rapper MIMS. No, he’s not popular because he’s hot. The case is, he was repetitive as a senile grandmother with Alzheimer’s, but it helped him win the number game. Though MIMS sold a million saying nothing important on the track, the specious trick is used by various other artists and it proves to be very successful.

Down To Earth Approach cashed in on the trick. After interning at Vagrant Records, singer Jonathan Lullo snatched a record deal for his band, the perfect platform for releasing an album full of repetitive love stories. The whole “lets sing about love” concept is hardly taken seriously, yet the band insists on drilling the love struck story line into our heads. With the help of the often criticized, trite use of the same repetitive chords and the beginner drum fills, the vocals shine through like neon vacancy signs. Vacant, like how the band sounds a cappella and the songs sound hollow. The band forgets to add anything more than a catchy introduction to the music yet never fails to repeat a specific refrain line often enough to be annoying. The repetitiveness could have worked if they weren’t planning to use it in songs like the acoustic “You Don’t Need Love”. As polished and pretty as it sounds, it equals nothing more than aggravation. The same holds true for the rest of the tracks. Clever lines are sporadic (unless you’re one for emo, then they’re everywhere) and a few parts are worth listening to, but the tracks never seem to be completely finished. They either lack another half of the song or things would have been better edited out.

Mother always says being popular isn’t important. Mother should have told Down To Earth Approach that before they sold themselves short. The band had a better chance at success with Another Invention, their previous release. Come Back to You doesn’t even have what it takes to be queued in Hollister's trendy media players.

--Fiona Lee

Author

Fiona Lee
Last updated: 09/29/2009 08:59PM

Comments

theseed30
07/30/2007
03:01PM
Location
Cincinnati
A solid review for sure. However, I would find it hard to classify these guys with Boyslikegirls, falloutboy, or Cartel. While DTEA has a poppish aspect, it's just not the sound that would appeal to the teenyboppers. But I do agree that I'm struggling getting into this release, too many tracks either seem the same or just lack that spark that made Another Intervention the shit.

2, maybe 2 1/2 stars my opinion.
tim
07/30/2007
03:01PM
Age: 29
Location
Green Brook, NJ
this is generic as shit but i think it has some redeeming qualities. prolly a 2 1/2 star release, i think 1 1/2 is a little too much of a dip.
SM760
07/30/2007
03:46PM
Location
Haleiwa, HI / Carlsbad, CA
I like this record alot.. But i cant stand "The Wizard" it really makes me mad.. The beginning of song is annoying as hell.. They shouldnt have included this on the record.

tim
07/30/2007
03:48PM
Age: 29
Location
Green Brook, NJ
i think "see you" is an excellent song.