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They've apparently been receiving comparisons to The Arcade Fire and Modest Mouse and I've heard that the self-titled debut from The Airborne Toxic Event is a highly anticipated release. Now that the album is out, does it deliver?
Unfortunately, it does not.
The album starts off great. The opening track, "Wishing Well", had me ready for a brilliant rock album. This track is a great mix of keyboards and guitars and opens the album with a high quality bang. Mikel Jollett sort of gruffly sings his way through this song and it sounds great. The following nine tracks simply fail to deliver. It doesn't reach the quality or enjoyment level of the first track. The album peaks at track one and careens downward from there on out. It almost seems like Jollett is forcing his voice into places it shouldn't be going. Too deep, too gruff. It doesn't work at all after "Wishing Well".
I really wanted to like this album, I was excited to get it and listen but it just didn't work out that way. Normally, I like bands that are mixing keyboards and guitars and strings but this album did not click with me. Who knows — maybe I need to see them live to fully appreciate them?
The main issue is that it seems like I have heard this album before and not by the previously named bands that people are inexplicably comparing them to. It sounds more like something heard from Marvelous 3 or Maximo Park. In each case it was done better.
Nowadays, for a band to truly make an impression they need to bring something new. This just wasn't done on this album. It seems tired and recycled to me. Lyrically and musically it just didn't capture my attention the way I had hoped.
This isn't to say that The Airborne Toxic Event are a bad band. Clearly, people out there like them. They are critically acclaimed, even being named one of the "Top 25 Bands on MySpace" (which is a lofty claim considering the thousands of bands on that site, of which hundreds are better than this one) by Rolling Stone. They've shown they are capable of making great music, at least with one track. I would expect them to come back stronger with a second album, one that is consistently good from track one throughout, instead of petering out to mediocre rock.
I won't write the band off completely based on one album. They could be an incredible live act that just isn't having justice done to them on a record. I'll await a live show or a second album before I completely turn my back on them. I did see a moment of greatness on the self-titled debut, I just hope there may be more to come.
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