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The Treats:
Paint Your Blood
The Treats debut album, Paint Your Blood can only be described as something that I try to avoid when explaining the sound of an album...Rock. And what is the problem with that, you ask? Well, rock just seems a little too ordinary these days. This album is one part garage, one part blues, one part pop, and one part punk. Theres nothing wrong with these styles hell, it describes most of the music I listen to but whenever someone tells me that a band plays one of these genres of music, there has to be something that sets them apart. There has to be something about them that deviates from the ambiguous clichs of a rock album. While Madison, Wisconsins The Treats have nothing in their music that sets them apart from any other rock band, a few well-written songs attempt to make up for their poor lack of determination to hunt for rock and roll originality. The albums opening track, Petroleum, is a good rewrite of The Stooges and is probably their best interpretation of pure rock and roll confidence. The rest of the songs that try to capture the attitude and hooks of Petroleum, (which are large in number) fail and seem to stand on nothing more than the fact that they want to resemble the albums opener. Its not until their first true pop song, Volcanic, that the songwriting team of brothers Andrew and Don Isham really start to realize where theyre going. They stop trying to rely on the off-key snarl of lead singer Andrew, and instead he sings like Matthew Sweet to a song that tries to prove that he really has some songwriting potential. Andrew uses his voice like it was meant to be used and delivers a simple yet beautiful song about the joys of summer love. Its the first time that I actually believe in the ability of the The Treats, but definitely not the last. My favorite song on the album, Bliss, recaptures the summer innocence of Volcanic and again makes me wonder why the band didnt model all their songs after the pop stylings of these two gems. To frustrate me even more, they add another treat towards the end of the album, If Only. The trio of songs arent enough to hold the album together, but its a quick glimpse into a band that needs to realize what theyre good at and run with it. Their sound has been done over and over, but if they can write a whole album of songs like Bliss, then who the hell cares?
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