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Waterproof
Blonde: The Morning After the Night Before
Left Off The Dials motto is Music For You, Not Them, which I think pretty clearly indicates that it is dedicated to music that stands in contrast to what youre likely to find on your average pop rock radio station. It therefore stumps me when bands so perfectly suited to mainstream audiences send in their new releases to LOTD for review. But it happens all the time, and here we have another example. But let me go to the good points first. As uncomplicated as Waterproof Blondes musical vision might be, there are a few solid songs on Morning After. Only the most hardened indie fans will not cave to the catchier rock numbers and stronger ballads hiding within this 10-song album. The edgy and brawny riffage of Are You Ready should have you nodding your head, while the pretty melodies of Fall on Her and Parade are particularly persuasive and best suit singer Rachel Hagans voice. Also, as much as I hate to think it still matters, the simple fact that this is a rock band fronted by a woman garners the project some bonus points. While theres no shortage of pop queens, mainstream rock continues to suffer from a limited female presence. For every Evanescence, there are what? 100 Third Eye Blinds? Its nice for a change to hear aggressive instruments grinding away beneath sturdy female vocals (now if only there were more girls playing those instruments . . . but I digress). About Hagans vocals: they are often compared to Gwen Stefanis and Chrissy Hyndes, but theres a distinct Sheryl Crow twang in them, too. This is especially noticeable on the albums lead-off track, Hold Me Down, which is really just a steroids-injected Crow number. Sometimes Hagan truly belts it out and seems unstoppable; she also tends, as mentioned earlier, to do the more gentle numbers proud. Yet there are several songs on which her voice sounds thin or stretched too far, Feel and Supermodel Craving being good cases in point. Diamonds is Hagans most Gwen-inspired performance, but as she lacks Stefanis sultry depth, its a less-than-satisfying imitation. While the vocals may have their ups-and-downs, the bands true weak point is its songwriting. Theres nothing on this album you havent heard before, and while plenty of the songs have what it takes to get by, too many are full of T.V. car commercial-quality musical clichs. (One of Waterproof Blondes older songs is used by a WWE wrestler as his theme music, so the band is no stranger to writing sound bite-ready hooks and choruses.) The backing band is utterly competent but rarely interesting. They cop a lot of moves from 80s big-hair rock and mid-90s alternative-lite. The fact is, if their volume was turned down just a few notches, a lot of these songs would perfectly suit pop tarts like Lindsay or Pink. And the lyrics generally fail to rise above anything that Linda Perry has recently thrown together for Avril. Its safe to say that several songs on Morning After would fit in nicely among standard Top 40 rock radio entries, and Hagans often strong vocals will definitely help the band stick out from the crowd. But if youre looking for music not ready-made for them, youre gonna want to look elsewhere.
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