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Weezer fans rejoice…I’m listening to Make Believe, Weezer’s newest album on AOL.com, which isn’t going to hit stores until tomorrow. From what I’ve heard, it’s better than Maladroit, and definitely better than the lowest of the low the Green album. They also have hit a new record for longest album in their career of 45 minutes. Almost all their other albums were right around 28 minutes or so.

About 17 minutes through now, and it looks like Rivers re-learned how to play lead guitar. Now the jokey “We Are All On Drugs” sounds like a rockin’ remix of the kiddie song “diarrhea”, cha cha cha! Not there yet, but I see on the track list the last song “Haunt You Every Day” comes in at a little over 7 minutes…Maybe another “Only In Dreams”?

As you may have noticed, the only posts that I’ve been putting up recently are the DOA reviews. These have gotten more and more “forced” as time went on. This site, as I’ve said many times on here before, originally started as a place to post my pictures from my camera phone. It quickly evolved into a place where I would post reviews of CD’s that I bought. I took it one step further and started to ask around at online music review sites if they need another writer. Delusions of Adequacy accepted me, and threw me into the fire of having to turn in reviews on a weekly basis. I have put more and more pressure on myself to write good reviews, but have started to (for lack of better words) half-ass the reviews. It’s a combination of only listening to each CD for an average of one week, then formulating an opinion and writing a review by every Saturday evening. Usually I would drag myself through my work week, which has gotten more and more demanding in the past few months, then scramble on either Thursday night or Friday night to pump out a review. At first I was in it for the free CD’s, to hear new music, be exposed to different sounds, to better my writing abilities, to have something to do, something to talk about on my site and to new friends – but as time went on, the less enjoyable it has become. I found myself staying in some nights instead of going out with friends, just so that I could get the review in on time.
Something I learned from being in a band with Dave, Andrew and Don, is that they had always said that the reason why they were in a band was to have fun. If it ever turned out to not be fun, and more business like, that they would drop it in a second. I feel like I’ve come to a crossroads where it’s turning more into business, and less fun. I had 100 times more fun when I used to write about CD’s that I actually went out and bought. The CD’s that I review, 99.876% of the time, no one will know who the band is, nor will they ever hear the music, unless I give the CD away. Music has always been a hobby and I’ve never wanted to turn listening to music into a “job”. Basically it boils down to my site being more and more irrelevant, and off path than it has ever been. I won’t stop doing music reviews, but I’ll do them on CD’s that I want to review…I feel bad because I just received a new shipment of promos from DOA, and just started thinking about stopping writing for DOA. The verdict is out, but I’m leaning towards stopping…

LAST PROMO OF THE BUNCH + BEING TIRED FROM WORKING TOO HARD ALL WEEK + OVERPLAYED AND TIRED SOUND + OVERSATURATED GENRE = BAD REVIEW. It had to happen eventually. I guess too bad it was the band Name Taken which I’ve read some decent reviews on across the web while doing research for the review, but I guess I gotta tell it how I see it. I was not a fan of them, and was just glad to get the review over with. Hopefully I will be rejuvenated with the recent shipment of promos that I received in the mail just Friday afternoon. Already previewed 2-3 of them, and dug one of them already…Read the review below, hope I wasn’t too harsh…

As much as I really wanted to write a glowing review for Name Taken’s latest release Hold On, I don’t think that I can. This isn’t a negative review, just more of an I’m-reaching-the-saturation-point-for-this-type-of-music review.

There are a few tracks off the album that I enjoyed. “A Year Spent Cold” is an upbeat song with a dissonant lead guitar that fills in the silences during the chorus. The next track “Panic” has a noodling lead guitar that kept my interest for a short while. But overall, the songs just melded into the ocean of similar tunes.

Being a reviewer for DOA, I hear a lot of different music all the time, as we get to review a wide variety of music. But halfway through Hold On, I stopped my CD player, opened it up, and checked what CD I was listening to. To tell you the honest truth, I thought that I had already heard it before: a lead singer pouring his heart out over tastefully distorted guitars and a clean guitar plucking a complementary melody line. While the three characteristics that I just mentioned are definitely not a bad thing, you must have something more than that to make a splash. There has to be an X factor. With hundreds of bands fitting into this hard rock/emo genre, there has to be something about the record that differentiates it from the throngs of others just like it.

Name Taken never ventures off the beaten path that the many comparable bands have set before them. I wouldn’t recommend this album to new listeners, as they will find not much new or improved here.

Even though this Midtown album was copyright protected, and I couldn’t listen to it through my big stereo (I usually just listen to the albums I review with headphones anyways), I still really dug it. For some stupid reason, it wouldln’t read in a normal CD player because when the CD loads it starts up its own proprietary CD player application. I’m sure this was only because it was the promo CD, and hopefully the nationally released album will be able to play in any CD player. Or then again, maybe it is just because of the new-ness of copyright protecting music CD’s…Good thing or bad thing..? Maybe it’ll be an interactive post…Anyways, I first heard of Midtown back at JMU…I downloaded some of their MP3′s off of Napster (when it was free), and immediately downloaded the rest of their available songs. Much like Blink 182 this album is more grown up than what I remember hearing from them before, and also they have the knack of writing really good pop rock songs. No gimmicks, just good ol’ music. Read the full review below!

I’ll spare you the history of Midtown, and much like the band’s third full-length album does, I’ll get right down to business.

The slamming first track “To Our Savior” is energetic, hard-hitting, and multifaceted. Lead singer Gabe Saporta starts off the track by screaming “So hard to believe what you’re looking for!” as if he has something to prove. The guitars come with guns blazing, and a fuzzed-out bass line furiously thumps along in the breakdown towards the end of the song. What a great start! And just as I had hoped, this song sets the tone and energy level for the remainder of the album.

Showing a different side on “Whole New World,” Saporta reduces his generally abrasive vocal tone to a soft whisper during the verses, but he makes sure to kick it into high gear during the chorus. More serious and/or personal subjects are tackled in “Waiting for the News.” The lyrics are composed as a conversation between a father and son about the father’s separation with the son’s mother. Saporta shows yet another facet of his voice by singing in falsetto, and hitting the heart strings with revealing lyrics like, “Even though we sleep together we’re alone / Yes, we’ve all made mistakes.”

It seems as if Midtown is on the brink of hitting it big. Forget What You Know is filled with quality hooks worthy of heavy rotation. Although it was hard to place at first, there is something, albeit small, missing from Midtown’s picture: while the songs all have professional sound quality, there can be some rough edges. The sense of the basement pop-punk band is present in many of the songs. And although it isn’t a negative mark on this album by any means, the more raw sound is just something that differentiates Midtown from bands that have hit it big like Sum 41.

So, after most of the cards have been laid on the table about Forget What You Know, what is left is a hard-rocking album that isn’t monotonous but extremely entertaining from start to finish. Too many times bands in this genre hit the same chord over and over without showing any dynamics between songs. A good mix of pop rock, guitar hooks, and infectious lyrics, this album comes with a high recommendation.

Read the review on DOA!