Ann 2
Alain
JennYTrapt - Only Through The Pain Album Review
August 25th 2008 16:20
Release date: August 5, 2008
Genre: Post-grunge
Length: 45:06
Label: Eleven Seven
Remember that band who burst out into the music scene five years ago with their massively successful debut single “Headstrong?” Well, those guys are back with their third studio album, Only Through The Pain, a record about love and relationships which reaches out to the MTV/teenage girls audience while still trying to keep a rock edge.
The album starts off with Wasteland, one of the few high-tempo tracks of the record. The sound is vaguely similar to California band Avenged Sevenfold. At first listen, it seemed like the singing in the verses didn't match the instrumental but it got better after a couple of replays. The bridge and the chorus, though, are definitely the best parts of the song.
Who's Going Home With You Tonight? and Contagious are the kind of songs that you would see on MTV's TRL. Fans of the Rock Band videogame might have played the first single, Who's Going Home With You Tonight?, on their consoles. To me, the best part of the song was the bridge. Contagious is a love song that's solid all around. I loved the lyrics on that one.
The next two songs follow the love theme with both tracks being ballads. On Black Rose, I was pleasantly surprised by the guitar solo towards the end, it came out of nowhere, yet it was great. Plus, the singing went well with the instrumental. But it's on Ready When You Are that I realized how much I liked Chris Brown's voice; the way he's able to slow down to the point of almost speaking the lyrics contrasts well with his singing on the chorus.
Forget About The Rain is a prime example of a band trying something new and failing miserably. The song has some sort of funky bass that's really bad. It's a really disappointing effort, especially after the album's previous tracks.
Cover Up is an average song that starts hard but turns out to be a normal rock song with a sing-along chorus.
Only One In Color follows Cover Up and is a ballad. It's a boring song, pretty disappointing considering the good work they did on Black Rose and Ready When You Are.
The ninth track of the album is called Wherever She Goes. I'm tempted to say that it sounds like Incubus but I'm not completely familiar with Incubus' entire catalog, only a handful of songs, so I'll leave it at that. It's another love song (you could've guessed that from the title).
Curiosity Kills is a hard song but the singing and the instrumental don't really go well together. The guitar on the verses sounds like it's doing its own thing while the singer sings.
The album concludes with another ballad called The Last Tear. It's a good song that saves the second part of the album from oblivion.
With four ballads, and the majority of songs talking about love, Only Through The Pain is a good buy for the mainstream audience. This album makes me think of Trapt as a sort of younger, American version of Nickelback. I would have given the album a 3.5 or 3.75/5 but the decline in quality from the sixth track to the tenth (half of the album), brings the score down to 3.25/5.
Next week is the second edition of Blast From The Past. I'll be reviewing The Ramones' Mondo Bizarro and Iron Maiden's Powerslave while fellow member Alain will review a hip hop record along with The Game's newest album L.A.X. as a bonus review. So, see you folks next Monday.
| 40 |
| Vote |
Shared on
Add To: 
Subscribe to this blog
Thanks for stopping by...visit my other posts and don't forget to subscribe to the email feature. A notification will be sent to you when something new has been added.
