Ours Is Chrome

Superheaven

SideOneDummy, 2015

http://superheavenband.bandcamp.com

REVIEW BY: Benjamin Ray

ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED: 06/11/2015

Most of the time, I am able to be impartial while writing a review. Pearl Jam is my favorite band but I am far from a shipper; they have their fair share of dull tracks and I don’t even own No Code, nor will I ever. But anyone who reads my reviews knows I have a lifelong affinity for ‘90s alternative rock, and so when I hear a new album that uses that music as an influence, I’m naturally inclined to give it a higher grade.

That’s what makes an album like my_heart_sings_the_harmony_web_ad_alt_250 Ours Is Chrome difficult to review objectively. This album could have arrived shrink-wrapped in 1995 and it would have fit right in to the musical landscape. It’s derivative beyond belief, not in actual songs, but in how the band has been able to recreate almost the exact sounds of an era. “Next To Nothing” combines the Smashing Pumpkins’ “Today” and the Foo Fighters’ “My Hero,” for instance, right down to the wall of guitars, the loud/soft dynamic and the mumbled vocals that get lost in the sonic roar. “Room,” meanwhile, mashes up the Pixies and Nirvana in appealing yet unnecessary ways.

There are a small handful of twists that remove this from outright tribute band status (like the bass intro to “From The Chest Down”), but they are lost amid the never-ending guitar roar, which seems to be the same with each song. The question becomes whether Taylor Madison is trying to sound like Kurt Cobain or Rivers Cuomo (check out “Dig Into Me”), because the band has the same attack on each song. After a while they all run together in a grungy Billy Corgan-inspired haze.

The crawling “From The Chest Down” and “Next To Nothing” are probably the best songs, inasmuch as they stand out from the crowd just enough to be noticed. And to be fair, there are plenty of good riffs, and as said above the playing sounds great, transmitting Superheaven’s live attack to disc admirably.

I don’t know if I’m the target audience for this, though, because I identify these sounds with the original bands, which presents a conundrum of appreciating this band’s sounds but knowing exactly where they got it. Simply put, this album sounds fantastic; it rocks hard, sounds great loud, and deserves some radio play. But it rarely makes that leap from ‘90s revival into something truly fresh and modern…although, there are far worse things than finding out you enjoy this sound and digging backward to find out its origins.

Rating: C

User Rating: Not Yet Rated


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