GIRLS AGAINST BOYS - FREAK*ON*ICA
Freak*On*Ica is the first major-label record by Girls Against Boys, which puts it in a very precarious position in the music world. The majority of the "indier-than-thou" types will write it off immediately as a being a sellout, while people who buy their music from Wall-Mart won't know anything about it. As far as the music itself goes, it's good in a one-dimensional sort of way. Each song starts out with a techno-poppy intro before morphing into the actual song, which sounds nothing like the intro. GVSB annoyed me immediately by featuring a lead singer with a stage voice. Growling into a distortion mic is OK once in a while, but when the same trick is used on each of the twelve tracks, it's a gimmick that gets old quickly. Midway through "Psycho-Future" I found myself shouting into my CD player "Sing in your normal vioce, dammit!" but to no avail. Another gripe I had with the band was their choice of subject matter. Basically they don't have any. There are a few good moments, rages against the fashion industry ("Vogue Thing") and Disneyland ("One Firecracker"), but overall the songs are not very deep. Then again, what should I have expected from songs with titles like "Speedway" and "Push the Fader". The individual songs generally don't have enough unique properties to stand out from one another and sort of blend together into a uniformly bland whole. Exceptions are the subdued warbling of "Vogue Thing" and the outer spacey samples of "Cowboy's Orbit". So while the album really isn't bad it really doesn't give you enough of a reason for its existence. GVSB have enough promise to warrant waiting for a hopefully better next album, though.
Review by Aram at: Frames Per Second
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