Harry Potter and The Order of Phoenix

 

Everyone knows that feeling when you get really excited by a song and go out and buy an entire album – and are then let down when you find that not only is that the only good song on the album, but they are forced to listen to it so often that you soon tire of it and the entire event becomes an exercise in how to spend $17 on a piece of shiny round plastic. This is how Hoobastank’s second album, The Reason, pans out. The initial sign of death is the fact that the best song on the album is also the title track. So the reason The Reason fails is because of “The Reason.” I’m dizzy.

“Out of Control” sounds like the type of song you’d hear at a frat party: loud, soulless guitar with ironic lyrics that are shouted occasionally with just the right amount of feeling and angst. “What Happened to Us?” is another heartfelt rager that makes you feel the pain that a millionaire in his 20s must feel when he has lost love. It has a mellow guitar and some good vocals that descend into gruff emoting during the choruses. In the verses, the band show that they can actually write some decent music, but when it hits the chorus, it is just a four-note thrashing guitar in the low register. This is the part where the guy in the WB show beats up a car with a baseball bat during a downpour of rain. Feel the emotion.

“Escape” is what I wish I could do right now instead of listening to this. Again, it’s formulaic and is more a collection of sounds and noises rather than music with some fits of lyricism scattered throughout. “Just One” is in the same vein but it doesn’t have any pretension that it is anything but a thrasher song. It starts out that way and keeps it up. It’s simple but enjoyable because, unlike some of the other tracks, this one remains consistent in its approach.

Too many guitars are trying to compete with one another, a sure sign of overproduction. You really get the feeling that the engineers had to piece a lot of stuff together. There are only four band members, but at times it sounds like there are at least three or four guitars involved, not including the bass. It has the effect of making each song sound exactly the same, but at a level far beyond simply being a collection of songs on an album. It’s really hard to pick anything out except the ballads. This is because they keep it simple, so that anyone with a slightly discerning ear can pick out each instrument. This is the case on “Disappear,” “Lucky” and “The Reason,” which is a genuinely good song with an even better video, but it is an island on this album of the easy way out. Of course, “The Reason” is too catchy for its own good.

Overall, these guys are overproduced and either don’t have enough confidence in their own abilities or their management has none in them. There is some good stuff here, but much of it is buried under an avalanche of guitar noise. The ballads help to get rid of this, but they are few and far between and Douglas Robb’s lead vocals can get a bit strident at times, especially when he is trying to emote in the upper register. Save your money and just listen to Hoobastank on the radio or at your local university. Somebody’s bound to have it.