Review: 16 Second Stare - Red Carpet Material


This one’s a bit of a head-scratcher: rock/metal from Lutz, Florida, credited as a two-guitar duo in the lyrics booklet though clearly also composed of bass and drums. The packaging of their debut full-length Red Carpet Material is plastered with attractive women in seductive poses, and said objectification is supposedly “for the troops” because “freedom isn't free” and “these chicks are our gift to you.”

Before going into any extensive rants about justifying sex appeal for military service, it should also be mentioned that 16 Second Stare has the same trouble conveying ideas lyrically as they do warranting scantily clad females on their album art. Take “Anymore” for a quick example: “I don’t care if you want me anymore / It’s my time so let’s make it easy / I don’t care if you’re a pretty little whore.” The title track is much the same: “Wanna go for a ride / Release the fantasy / In our time of need.” Those are just two examples, but there’s nothing of any real substance on the entire album, which stands in direct contradiction to the claim laid on the band’s MySpace page: “The strong team of 'Angry' Tim Shanks and Todd Petus […] deliver pure rock and roll substance.”

Musically, this is about as generic as it gets, full of empty fist-pumpers (“Smash,” “Anymore”), boring rock ballads (“Control,” “Goodbye”) and half-hearted attempts at something slightly dancey (“Roxy”). The one listenable track, “Ballad of Billy Rose,” isn’t even credited to the band themselves. Oh yeah, “listenable” is somewhat debatable but “watchable” is almost out of the question.

Though it is a bit confusing as to why this was sent to Punknews for review, it doesn't take a genius to figure out this should be avoided at all costs, even if it's free (as it was for 10,000 troops, apparently). For pictures of attractive women, you’d be better off buying a Cosmo...there might actually be some substance in that.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Review: Dropkick Murphys / H2O / Civet live in Minneapolis

In Jersey, they’re called guidos. In Boston, they’re chuckleheads. Southern California just calls them bros. Wherever you are or whatever you do, there’s an overabundance of intolerably obnoxious, pinheaded macho males that effectively ruin some prime sector of society. In Minneapolis we have a very special pejorative amalgamation for the types of people we don’t want crowding our concerts and bars with their noxious colognes and juvenile mentalities and they are unaffectionately known exclusively as dude-bros. And in 2009, the dude-bros have put down their O.A.R. CDs, put on their green polos and found a whole new reason to get drunk: the Dropkick Murphys. The sad reality is that the Dropkick Murphys haven’t even really done anything to acquire these distasteful fans. Sure, they gained a few more mainstream fans signing with the Warner-backed Independent Label Group, but not a whole lot more than were already jumping on the bandwagon at the end of their Hellcat stint. As a touring ban
Read more

Interview: Jesse Michaels (Operation Ivy, Classics of Love, Common Rider)

Image
When I first started getting heavily into punk around 9th grade, Operation Ivy was one of the first bands to really resonate with me. Their simple message of individualism, unity, and nonconformity was uncompromising, but never without a glimmer of hope hidden beneath. Years later I heard my first taste of Common Rider and was blown away to find out it was the same singer as Operation Ivy, Jesse Michaels. Since then, I have collected every piece of music he has done, from Operation Ivy bootlegs to the four-song Big Rig EP, to Common Rider and beyond. When I heard Jesse Michaels and his new band Classics of Love was coming to Minneapolis, I jumped at the chance to interview him and could not be happier with meeting him and finding out more about his life and projects. In a 2003 interview, Michaels said of the late Joe Strummer, “I was lucky enough to meet him and he was everything one would hope for in somebody they looked up to.” Now I can say the same of Jesse Michaels. You can click
Read more

Interview: Paint it Black (Dan Yemin and Andy Nelson)

Image
Full interview with Dan Yemin and Andy Nelson of Paint it Black. Abridged version originally appeared in Poweredge skateboarding magazine. Check out Poweredge for the interview details and intro. Interview by Tyler Barrett, photo by Adam DeGross. RadioActivist: Why’d you decide to play your two Midwestern shows in the dead of winter? Dan Yemin: To be honest, we were so excited about coming we didn’t really consider the weather until we arranged everything. We haven’t been here in like six years because of a weird combination of things—partly that we don’t really tour and partly because coming out just to play a couple shows in the Midwest from Philly is really hard. It’s either drive and play Chicago and Detroit or fly and play Minneapolis and Chicago. And we’ve been talking about doing it for the last three years but we keep going to like England, like someone offers “Hey, we’ll fly you over to England” and we’re like “Okay, cool.” And so we end up spending all the time we had to
Read more