DEAD DAY SUN: BLESS THE BROODING HEART (REVIEW)
December 23rd 2006 01:21
DEAD DAY SUN
BLESS THE BROODING HEART
(2006; MGM)
RATING
TRACK LISTING: 1) Bless The Brooding Heart / 2) Truth Kills / 3) Harmony / 4) Still / 5) Sunshine / 6) Desire / 7) Ordinary Life / 8) Aimee / 9) Stay (Never Ever) / 10) The War
Objectivity’s a funny thing. It’s considered an admirable trait in a critic, but the act of reaching for it can often make you feel like a liar and compromise your (in my case imagined) integrity. In my first reviews for Tsunami Mag I tried to be objective about the album Bless The Brooding Heart (2006) by the local band Dead Day Sun. I wanted to give them a fair shake, because they’re a new local band, and also because I was new to this whole published reviews thing myself. I didn’t give the album glowing praise, but my comments were a lot nicer than they should’ve been if I was being honest with myself and any potential readers.
But I am here today, ladies ‘n’ gentlemen, to tell y’all what I really think. In Tsunami I gave Bless The Brooding Heart a 5.5 out of a possible total of 10, which translates to somewhere between 2 & a half and 3 stars here at the Earache Hotel. As you can see, I have now chosen to give it a whopping 1 & a half stars. Wanna know why? Well nothing much has changed, the album still sounds the same, but I’ve decided to throw objectivity out the window. This is fairer on me, my readers, and the band themselves; because rockstars get enough people kissin' their asses and enough groupies snorting coke off their penises. Someone needs to tell 'em straight.
Below is the original review in bold, broken down sentence-by-sentence, with ‘honest’ commentary added underneath.
As a child of the ‘90s, I’ve been looking over my shoulder, waiting for the fateful day when that decade would come back to haunt me.
This part is true. I was a teenage grunge whore and swallowed any piece of swill that was branded with the words Seattle. Since then I’d like to think I’ve become a more discerning listener, but at the same time I still feel a fondness for those simpler times. This fondness forces me to express how I still have respect for and on occasion enjoy bands like Stone Temple Pilots and Pearl Jam, even though they aren’t really my thing anymore. This makes me incredibly uncool.
And here it is, in the guise of Bless the Brooding Heart by Sunnybank five-piece Dead Day Sun.
This sentence doesn’t even make sense. Dead Day Sun aren’t the day that the ‘90s came back to haunt me. Dead Day Sun aren’t even a day—they’re a bland, mediocre butt-rock band. Still, their music does make me embarrassed to think that the sound I loved in the ‘90s somehow evolved into this. Think grunge-lite like Nickelback and Matchbox Twenty and you're in the ball-park (of shit).
This is a soaring stadium-friendly album boasting grungy guitars with a vague Zeppelin influence, and angsty vocals with occasional falsetto and Brian Johnson-esque yelps.
Well, all of these things are true—but what the hell does that have to do with the ‘90s? I suppose what I was trying to say was that the ‘90s grunge bands were also influenced by Zeppelin and AC/DC and that Dead Day Sun are somehow carrying on in this tradition. But, my Tsunami review was only 200 words and it lost something in the act of condensing it down.
The music is played competently in a mainstream radio rock style and vocalist Darren Schadel does have a strong and pleasantly gruff voice, with some falsetto and raspy AC/DC type grunts. They also remind me of the pomposity of U2, the gross and confused masculinity of Motley Crue, and the laughability of No Vacancy in the movie School Of Rock.
The problem is that these elements have been used a thousand times before, and Dead Day Sun haven’t yet developed a unique personality to set them apart from their heroes, making the results fairly predictable.
Yep, that’s true. I couldn’t pick a thing that set these guys apart from bands like Matchbox Twenty or Nickelback except that they sound even more faceless. What I really should have said is that this is pretentious cock rock with zero new ideas and I cannot glean anything about the personality of the band members except that they are vaguely tortured males who like rock music. It has the masculine earnestness that is expected of the genre, but at least Eddie Vedder's anguished lion-roar is genuinely affecting. I just don’t buy Shadel’s pain. It sounds like he’s trying to sound tortured because that’s what’s expected of him. It comes off like bad theatre, which would be ok if it was full of surprises and larger than life—but it just isn’t. You can see every move these guys are making from a mile off: from the introspective verses to the soaring choruses, and everything is calculated to manipulate the emotions like so much arena rock before.
There’s some great moments here, like the fist-in-the-air rockers “Harmony”, and the title track; but it’s the watery guitar and broodingly earnest vocals of the ballads “Ordinary Life” and their hit single “Still” that stand out here.
Great moments? What was I thinking? Yes, “Harmony” and “Bless the Brooding Heart” do stand out and are competently performed, but does the world really need more of this stuff? “Bless The Brooding Heart” chugs along pleasantly enough I guess and it does have a big radio-friendly sound, but “Harmony” sounds like the main riff was stolen from A Perfect Circle and like I said before, there are zero surprises. Since when does that constitute great? And since when does this crap make anyone want to put their fist in the air?
It is true that I found their slower ballady material to resonate more than the rest, but that’s just because these guys just don’t have the balls to convince me with their rockers. Where’s the dirt? Where’s the danger? Where’s the beef?
They’re already scoring goals in the US and are playing at the Coca Cola Live & Local tour, so if you’re a fan of bands like Matchbox Twenty and Nickelback, you should buy this album and get out there and see them.
This was another attempt to soften punches that were already pulled. Still, what I said here was genuine. In a world where Matchbox Twenty and Nickelback sell trillions of albums, Bless The Brooding Heart slots in quite nicely and I can imagine it being enjoyed by people who spend their entire social lives in hamburger chain car parks. It achieves what it has set out to do, and for that I really can’t blame them.
But that doesn't make it any good. I don’t have a problem with aiming for the charts, but at least try and do something original. Besides, I hate Matchbox Twenty and Nickelback, so my orginal review was basically saying: if you’re going to listen to shit, at least make it honest, home-grown shit. If safe, middle-of-the-road, AOR grunge is what you dig, then you will most likely enjoy Bless The Brooding Heart and you should go out and buy it rather than spending your dough on the same prosaic crap being spewed out by bands in the States.
Dead Day Sun are talented and have recorded a slick and professional album with competent songwriting. But if you’ve been drawn to the Earache Hotel because you like the music I’ve been talking about, I certainly can’t recommend this album. If you want good Brisbane music, you should go out and buy something by The Devereaux, Dick Nasty, Turnpike, or Sixfthick instead.
With some more original material and a little support, these guys could be huge.
The band are already relatively big for up-and-comers and are sure to keep getting bigger. But if they want to have truly long-lasting, meaningful success; if they want to affect people’s lives in the way bands like Pearl Jam and Soundgarden have done; if they don’t want to end up as some kind of fly-by-night act who get a few songs on radio, sell some albums, and are then promptly forgotten about: they need more originality and personality. They need to show us something that screams to be heard above all the other din out there and conveys a message that is heartfelt and real. Then they will earn the support that will make them stars.
***
LINKS
If you’re still interested, check out the Dead Day Sun website.
My original review can be found on the Tsunami website
IMAGES
Bless The Brooding Heart*
(album cover used under fair dealing)
* images on this page were taken from the following Myspace page:
DDS Merchshop
BLESS THE BROODING HEART
(2006; MGM)
RATING
TRACK LISTING: 1) Bless The Brooding Heart / 2) Truth Kills / 3) Harmony / 4) Still / 5) Sunshine / 6) Desire / 7) Ordinary Life / 8) Aimee / 9) Stay (Never Ever) / 10) The War
Bless The Brooding Heart (2006)
But I am here today, ladies ‘n’ gentlemen, to tell y’all what I really think. In Tsunami I gave Bless The Brooding Heart a 5.5 out of a possible total of 10, which translates to somewhere between 2 & a half and 3 stars here at the Earache Hotel. As you can see, I have now chosen to give it a whopping 1 & a half stars. Wanna know why? Well nothing much has changed, the album still sounds the same, but I’ve decided to throw objectivity out the window. This is fairer on me, my readers, and the band themselves; because rockstars get enough people kissin' their asses and enough groupies snorting coke off their penises. Someone needs to tell 'em straight.
Below is the original review in bold, broken down sentence-by-sentence, with ‘honest’ commentary added underneath.
As a child of the ‘90s, I’ve been looking over my shoulder, waiting for the fateful day when that decade would come back to haunt me.
This part is true. I was a teenage grunge whore and swallowed any piece of swill that was branded with the words Seattle. Since then I’d like to think I’ve become a more discerning listener, but at the same time I still feel a fondness for those simpler times. This fondness forces me to express how I still have respect for and on occasion enjoy bands like Stone Temple Pilots and Pearl Jam, even though they aren’t really my thing anymore. This makes me incredibly uncool.
And here it is, in the guise of Bless the Brooding Heart by Sunnybank five-piece Dead Day Sun.
This sentence doesn’t even make sense. Dead Day Sun aren’t the day that the ‘90s came back to haunt me. Dead Day Sun aren’t even a day—they’re a bland, mediocre butt-rock band. Still, their music does make me embarrassed to think that the sound I loved in the ‘90s somehow evolved into this. Think grunge-lite like Nickelback and Matchbox Twenty and you're in the ball-park (of shit).
This is a soaring stadium-friendly album boasting grungy guitars with a vague Zeppelin influence, and angsty vocals with occasional falsetto and Brian Johnson-esque yelps.
Well, all of these things are true—but what the hell does that have to do with the ‘90s? I suppose what I was trying to say was that the ‘90s grunge bands were also influenced by Zeppelin and AC/DC and that Dead Day Sun are somehow carrying on in this tradition. But, my Tsunami review was only 200 words and it lost something in the act of condensing it down.
The music is played competently in a mainstream radio rock style and vocalist Darren Schadel does have a strong and pleasantly gruff voice, with some falsetto and raspy AC/DC type grunts. They also remind me of the pomposity of U2, the gross and confused masculinity of Motley Crue, and the laughability of No Vacancy in the movie School Of Rock.
The problem is that these elements have been used a thousand times before, and Dead Day Sun haven’t yet developed a unique personality to set them apart from their heroes, making the results fairly predictable.
Yep, that’s true. I couldn’t pick a thing that set these guys apart from bands like Matchbox Twenty or Nickelback except that they sound even more faceless. What I really should have said is that this is pretentious cock rock with zero new ideas and I cannot glean anything about the personality of the band members except that they are vaguely tortured males who like rock music. It has the masculine earnestness that is expected of the genre, but at least Eddie Vedder's anguished lion-roar is genuinely affecting. I just don’t buy Shadel’s pain. It sounds like he’s trying to sound tortured because that’s what’s expected of him. It comes off like bad theatre, which would be ok if it was full of surprises and larger than life—but it just isn’t. You can see every move these guys are making from a mile off: from the introspective verses to the soaring choruses, and everything is calculated to manipulate the emotions like so much arena rock before.
There’s some great moments here, like the fist-in-the-air rockers “Harmony”, and the title track; but it’s the watery guitar and broodingly earnest vocals of the ballads “Ordinary Life” and their hit single “Still” that stand out here.
Great moments? What was I thinking? Yes, “Harmony” and “Bless the Brooding Heart” do stand out and are competently performed, but does the world really need more of this stuff? “Bless The Brooding Heart” chugs along pleasantly enough I guess and it does have a big radio-friendly sound, but “Harmony” sounds like the main riff was stolen from A Perfect Circle and like I said before, there are zero surprises. Since when does that constitute great? And since when does this crap make anyone want to put their fist in the air?
It is true that I found their slower ballady material to resonate more than the rest, but that’s just because these guys just don’t have the balls to convince me with their rockers. Where’s the dirt? Where’s the danger? Where’s the beef?
They’re already scoring goals in the US and are playing at the Coca Cola Live & Local tour, so if you’re a fan of bands like Matchbox Twenty and Nickelback, you should buy this album and get out there and see them.
This was another attempt to soften punches that were already pulled. Still, what I said here was genuine. In a world where Matchbox Twenty and Nickelback sell trillions of albums, Bless The Brooding Heart slots in quite nicely and I can imagine it being enjoyed by people who spend their entire social lives in hamburger chain car parks. It achieves what it has set out to do, and for that I really can’t blame them.
But that doesn't make it any good. I don’t have a problem with aiming for the charts, but at least try and do something original. Besides, I hate Matchbox Twenty and Nickelback, so my orginal review was basically saying: if you’re going to listen to shit, at least make it honest, home-grown shit. If safe, middle-of-the-road, AOR grunge is what you dig, then you will most likely enjoy Bless The Brooding Heart and you should go out and buy it rather than spending your dough on the same prosaic crap being spewed out by bands in the States.
Dead Day Sun are talented and have recorded a slick and professional album with competent songwriting. But if you’ve been drawn to the Earache Hotel because you like the music I’ve been talking about, I certainly can’t recommend this album. If you want good Brisbane music, you should go out and buy something by The Devereaux, Dick Nasty, Turnpike, or Sixfthick instead.
With some more original material and a little support, these guys could be huge.
The band are already relatively big for up-and-comers and are sure to keep getting bigger. But if they want to have truly long-lasting, meaningful success; if they want to affect people’s lives in the way bands like Pearl Jam and Soundgarden have done; if they don’t want to end up as some kind of fly-by-night act who get a few songs on radio, sell some albums, and are then promptly forgotten about: they need more originality and personality. They need to show us something that screams to be heard above all the other din out there and conveys a message that is heartfelt and real. Then they will earn the support that will make them stars.
***
LINKS
If you’re still interested, check out the Dead Day Sun website.
My original review can be found on the Tsunami website
IMAGES
Bless The Brooding Heart*
(album cover used under fair dealing)
* images on this page were taken from the following Myspace page:
DDS Merchshop
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Comment by Adrian
Philosophy Blog
Comment by Hellvis
Earache Hotel
Comment by Cibbuano
20/20 Filmsight
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Fat Cult
Techbreak
... I'm hoping that grunge won't make a comeback, but it's inevitable, isn't it?
Comment by Hellvis
Earache Hotel
I could do with more music like the Cows, the Scientists, Lubricated Goat, Mudhoney, Killdozer, etc. But this watered-down grunge-lite shit makes me wanna chuck. And I don't think you need to worry about it making a comeback. It's already here.
Comment by The Voices in my Head
The Voices in my Head
You know you're hurtin' me over here...are you trying to? 'Cause you are...bleeding, open vein over here.
No grunge? at all? Alice in Chains?
Voices~
Comment by Hellvis
Earache Hotel
I'm sorry if I hurt you. I don't think there should be no grunge at all, I just don't like what its evolved into.
I haven't really suggested that bands like Dead Day Sun shouldn't exist: I was just trying to be constructive in my criticism: if you're going to play this style, try to make it new and have some personality. I don't see the band doing that on this album. It all just washes over me and seems utterly inconsequential. I'm sure many other people would disagree. You might even like them.
I had written a long spiel about the meaning of grunge and where Alice In Chains fit in but it was turning into a thesis. Let's just say I like Alice In Chains because they had their own sound and they affected me in some way: physically, emotionally, spiritually? I don't like Dead Day Sun's sound and they don't affect me in any of these ways, at least not in a way that endears me to their music.
These things are hard to argue, because it is difficult to discuss a person's emotional reaction to music logically or artistically. It's all so subjective. All we can do when writing about music is to try and articulate these feelings, which is bloody hard. I haven't even begun to be happy with my music writing, but still I persist. I would hope that anyone making music would not be swayed by trends (or critics for that matter) and stay true to themselves. We should also do the same as music fans.
Comment by Anonymous
Comment by Anonymous
Comment by Hellvis
Earache Hotel
No Anonymous. Not even twice.