Various Artists
“Hopelessly Devoted to you – Volume 4”
(Hopeless Records)
Finally, a comp for $3.98. Mostly a highlight of Hopeless bands with unreleased records, this album’s a good choice for the curious; people that like a band and want to check out that particular label to see the rest of the catalog, hoping to find a similar band like their initial find.
What’s here? Well, the amazing Thrice offers two songs: one’s available off their current album, the other’s an unreleased (UR) title, which sounds dated and/or more poorly produced then their usual stuff.
Avenged Sevenfold surprise with “Second Heartbeat”, a UR song with plenty of rock offshoots. Everybody I know loves this band except me, and I think I figured out why. If you weren’t really into rock, or at least enough to appreciate ALL forms of it (from Def Leppard to Iron Maiden), BUT you think it’s cool, and with Sum41 and other bands doing this ‘imbrace Iron Maiden’ thing, this band might have a cool punk/metal thing going on, something which metal fans like me will quickly scoff at, saying cool disses like ‘ripoff’ and ‘poseurs’ while pushing the long stringy hair away from my face. So it’s a pretty cool song, at least for Sevenfold. Their other song on here bored me.
Against All Authority is on here, twice, with two crappy, fast and heavy rock songs. Common Rider, featuring Operation Ivy’s Jesse Michaels and Squirtgun’s Dan Lumley, is a far cry from their roots but are fairly cool, and their UR “Small Pebble” is one of their better songs.
The Weakerthan’s first song (out of two) should have been moved towards the back of this comp, because acoustic music squished between non-acoustic just isn’t that cool. Judging by their second track, they’re an emoish rock band with slightly nasally vocals, which sound like an off-the-beaten-path version of the Strokes. Speaking of not cool, Atom and His Package have two songs on here, one being a UR but both equally gay. I guess they aren’t really gay, but remember that movie, PCU, with that guy who watched one show during the whole movie for his college thesis? Well, if he had been watching VH1 and inhaling NOS balloons, and was given a recording contract, he’d probably sound nothing like Atom. But close… it’s hard to describe.
Mustard Plug’s on here, twice. Yeah, I’m pretty sick of ska. Samiam is slow indieish punk, but the UR song on here isn’t my cup of tea.
Digger’s on here with one boring, droning song.
Selby Tigers, a band who should have two songs on here but don’t, rocks with “Cheerleading is Big Business”. I know Hopeless has been pushing these guys, and that’s good, because they tear it up, if it = cool dual vocals slightly gritty almost Rudimentary Peni-ish music.
Scared of Chaka’s plays one song, which would be cool if it wasn’t full of fucking treble. I like this band; picture Thursday night at the local dive bar type of rock with punk choruses. And with lots of treble, apparently.
Jeff Ott’s on here. He’s in Fifteen, according to the insert. Don’t know him or the band, and he has an acoustic song, so I don’t care, because acoustic songs aren’t music. Okay, they are, but not in the critical sense. Any monkey can play some chords and sing about stuff; it takes a lot of monkeys to play a full set of electric equipment, and even more monkeys to do it right. I bet that orangutan in that one Clint Eastwood movie, where Clint bare boxes people, could play acoustic good enough to open for Jewel or something. Then he and Jewel can sit around, making fun of each others teeth and eat food. I bet Jewel eats like a monkey, all sloppy and making monkey screaming noises when someone tries to pull a plate of food away from here.
