I See Stars - [digital_renegade]
Rating
RIYL
Attack Attack!With One Last Breath
The Devil Wears Prada
Asking Alexandria
Release Date
03/13/2012
Label
SumerianTracklist
1. Gnars Attacks2. Nzt48
3. Digital Renegade
4. Endless Sky
5. Underneath Every Smile
6. Mystery Wall
7. Ibelieve
8. Summer Dies In Connersville
9. Electric Forest
10. Filth Friends Unite
Users Rating |
Your RatingCreate an account or log in to rate this album |
Recent Ratings |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
When you open your album with a stitched-together series of platitudes and clichés (“Burn every bridge you ever built / How do you live with yourself?”; “Keep your friends close / And your enemies closer”), you’d better damn well be bringing some serious heat to back it up. Instead, in our latest example of mallcore summer touring, I See Stars opts to do the opposite, inserting a middling dance beat in the midst of an otherwise, well, middling “Gnars Attacks” (complete with autotune, I might add). The following track, “NZT48,” is actually quite heavy at times, but the band seems intent on destroying any and all goodwill with pitchy vocals and more coiffed heads nodding to the dancefloor. Perhaps the target audience at these moments (that would be teenage girls, I presume) would be moved to follow suit, but I tend to adhere to the rule that you can’t play on a field with no grass.
The rest of the album pretty much follows suit, with the ADD-addled song structures (which certainly does not have to be a bad thing) caroming from fireworks popping (yes, buried deep in the title track, fireworks can be heard to go off) to recycled dance to gargantuan breakdowns. It makes for a somewhat disorienting listen, and not in the Dillinger Escape Plan kind of way, but in the, “There’s a market for this?” kind of way. Now that could just be my inner elitist turning his nose so far up his head falls off, but I really do fail to see the appeal of this nascent genre that seems to be on the Warped Tour ascendancy. The LMFAO on steroids aesthetic found on songs like “Filth Friends Unite” needs to go far, far away and never come back.
I will say this, though. When they want to, I See Stars can write heavy very well. There are some breakdowns on here that will have the most ardent pit-dwellers spin-kicking their way to metalcore nirvana. I feel like with more maturity the band may decide to pursue this direction more fully, and I think that would be a wise move. Hell, if The Devil Wears Prada and Attack Attack! can leave this sort of thing largely behind, anyone can do it.
--Jacob Oliver
Comments
Columbus, OH
This band used to at least have a couple songs that were decent guilty pleasures, but this is bad.
Currently Listening To:
Lo!- Monstrorum Historia
HeavyArms- Burning Crowds
Shining- One One One
Minnesota
My thoughts on their debut.
Things haven't changed much.
Find me EVERYWHERE:
Wales
Well, at least they were able to eke out an extra half star from me!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bLF9Cm4E15E
I GO TO WORK
Illinois
i really wanted to like this when i first heard it. i did like it for about a week or so, mostly for a few guilty pleasures like nick said. but it got old fast, i barely listen to any of the songs now. i did like 3D a lot back when it came out though...
last.fm/user/tragedyl0ve
twitter.com/1000cleverlines
1000cleverlines.tumblr.com
Salt Lake City, UT
We define "guilty pleasures" insanely different. Listening to musical equivalent of human vomit, eaten by a dog and then re-vomited back out said dog is not what I'd consider a "guilty pleasure." Man, people are weird.
http://www.sonnambulanaut.com/
^ Blogthing.
Why do people listen to this?
this shit is awful!!