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TyronneEvermore fail to grasp real life
August 3rd 2006 03:57
Like Subways and Youth Group, Evemore are yet another Southern Hemisphere band that must attribute their global success and fame at least partially to US teen soap The O.C.. In 2005, fresh from the release of their debut album the year earlier, and the subsequent release of It's Too Late as a single, the same single appeared on the O.C., launching them to global fame simply because some US production team decided that the song was "cool" and "indie" enough to appear on the global phenomenon that is the chronicling of the lives of four teenagers in Orange County. With global attention, the pressure was on for the New Zealand band to come up with the goods in their sophomore release.
The LP begins with the title track, Real Life, ambient guitar effects quickly breaking into an upbeat acoustic rhythm, with lead singer Jon Hume's vocals coming through strong and as memorable as it has ever been. The song is simple in structure and execution, feeling like an intro song, even though it clocks in at four minutes and thirty-six seconds. The end of the song returns to the ambient guitar and mellow vocals, paving the way for the second track and first single, Running. While the two songs are in completely different keys, it somehow works that the guitar riff for Running interrupts Real Life quite abruptly. And so the album continues, with Running a little more complex, and yet still retaining that simplicity that makes Evermore so appealing. The song shows off the band as an outfit that is so much more matured in their technical skills, melding together much more than was seen in the previous album, and definitely much stronger for it.
The third track, Light Surrounding You, again shows remarkable simplicity, but this time for the worse. The melody is catchy, but accompanied by mellow instrumentation and thus resulting in causing the listener to simply think of it as dragging and rather cliched. Rather than contribute anything to the album, it seems that it is an attempt by Evermore to make it once again into an O.C. feature slot, as this song feels more like film music than a song of its own standing. Unbreakable quickly and unapologetically returns to the mellow/upbeat mix that Evermore continues to perfect, easily citing influences from the likes of U2 and Switchfoot, though unforgettably Evemore.
Morning Star is where the album falls short so horribly. From the failed attempt at a Keane-esque vibraphone nursery rhyme sound, to Jon Hume's poor attempt at stretching his vocal range too low than is comfortable for him makes the song sound like it was sung by a 60 year-old trying to make it in a fresh pop market. Nevertheless, Never Let You Go more than makes up for it, making the listener almost completely forget about the previous mush, and return to feeling a soft heart. The song begins with a rough capella harmony that continues as a base throughout the song, though the inclusion of acoustic guitar to carry the song is more than welcome.
Once Never Let You Go finishes, a certain trend appears in the ending portion of the album, a sort of hit-and-miss experimental attitude which helped the band fail so horribly with Morning Star. Yet the trend continues with My Guiding Light which, while exhibiting nothing truly wrong, doesn't do anything right either, an experimental song that doesn't experiment. Afloat follows a similar trend, experimenting with various musical techniques that do more good than bad for the song. The Great Unknown is seemingly the last decent song on the album, whereas the next few songs, from The Only One I See to Goodnight is not the End, are very forgettable.
Evermore's second album has a promising start, with Real Life and Running both decent songs. However, from then on in, the album slowly becomes full of dry musical techniques and variations that the make the album as a whole, not that great. While it is seemingly much more together than "Dreams," there is still a lot further to go until Evermore are worthy of global fame. With the exception of the first two tracks and Never Let You Go, many listeners can give the album a miss without any regrets, and unless audiences are established fans of Evermore, it is unlikely that this album will be as much a landmark in music as "Dreams" was for 2004.
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