Emotionalpunk.com
Media Review
Music Quality: 9.0
Production: 10.0
Originality: 10.0
Tracklisting
2. Punk Rock Princess
3. I Woke Up In A Car
4. If You C Jordan
5. The Astronaut
6. Hurricane
7. Cavanaugh Park
8. Fall
9. Straw Dog
10. Good News
11. Drunk Girl
12. Not What It Seems
13. You're Gone
14. Globes & Maps
Something Corporate is a band I'm sure we've all heard of by now. With their debut EP release on Drive-Thru records, we all got a taste of what pop punk rock and roll with piano sounded like. Instantly most of us were hooked on SC's blend of catchy pop rock with a very Ben-Folds-esque feel in the vocals especially.
MCA Records also caught on to the infection that is Something Corporate and signed them. Then this highly anticipated release was hyped, pushed, and anxiously we all waited.
It is a brilliant record. The production is amazing, and the piano blends in perfectly with the rocking guitar. Vocally it is also a beautiful record.
The CD opens like a movie, and that is the effect I think they are trying to draw with the whole movie-cover-influenced liners. It starts with a quiet piano riff and some great effects with strings and builds up to "..and she wants to be a model, she wants to hear she's beautiful she's beautiful..I WANT TO SAVE YOU!" You can feel the sypmathy and raw emotion through Andrew's soft voice and soothing guitars as they layer over the strings.
Unfortunately, not all the songs draw quite the same effect. In the second track, a redone version of "Punk Rock Princess," the band shows a contrasting sound to the calm and perfect progressions you find in "I Want To Save You." "Punk Rock Princess" features a simple, dry chord progression and a lower vocal range for Andrew. Definitely not one of my favorites.
The CD shows more of what I loved in "I Woke Up In a Car," blending again the piano with a soft guitar feel as it builds up. These two songs sound literally like masterpieces in their construction; the crescendo and decrescendos as they add the guitar just sound perfect. You can feel the truth and passion in Andrew's voice as he sings "..well, I woke up in car, i traced away the fog so I could see the missisippi on her knees, I've never been so lost, I've never felt so much at home." Their "serious" songs are few however, as the very next track "If You C Jordan" is quite possibly the worst song I have ever heard. It is probably the simple lack of poetry in his vocals as he sings "high school's over and you still won't quit." It just sounds so weak and musically ordinary that I can't stand to listen to it.
"The Astronaut" exemplifies the soft feel to the band, which is how the CD ends up. It calms down towards the end, with the beautifully redone "Cavanaugh Park" and the masterful "Fall." The CD dies down near the end, but when it's shining, it blinds.
The CD's more serious moments in songs like "I Woke up in a Car," "Fall," and "I Want To Save You" show the band's strength to write compelling, complex, and emotional songs which I can't get enough of. However, on the "silly" songs such as "Punk Rock Princess" and "If You C Jordan" you couldn't want to skip them more. The slow, almost boring ending to the CD takes away a bit as well, but the redone versions of Cavanaugh and Hurricane as well as the (3) brilliant new tracks make the CD a killer.