I hate to be judgemental or prejudiced, but sometimes you just know when a record’s going to be bad. Three bars into ‘Mr Rockstar’ the first track on the album and it’s abundantly clear that ‘These Wounds’ is utter gash. There’s a 15-second intro track – a sample of dialogue – before the grimness of it all hits. Funk-infused rock with half-sung, half-spoken / rapped lyrics is never a good thing. And yes, it sets the tone and standard for the album. Referencing Blink 182, they toss out a collection of hyped-up soulful funk-metal – think Extreme’s ‘Get the Funk Out’ and Red Hot Chili Peppers’ entire back catalogue rehashed with a dash of jazz lobbed in for – actually, for what I’m not sure.
There’s a fiddly arpeggiated guitar break on the title track, which also boasts lots of ‘woooooh!’ terrace chant backing vocals. There’s nothing to redeem this steaming pile of cack lyrically, either: ‘do you know your history now, can you feel your backbone bleeding’ the singer beebaps and scats over a backing nabbed from the Chili Peppers’ ‘Californication’.
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They describe their sound as ‘acutely polished’. It is, but there are some things that simply can’t be polished, and this is a not-so shining example of that proverbial turd.
Still, I shouldn’t complain: I needed a new coaster.
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