What do you get when you mix five passionate vegetarians stranded on the moon with a synthesizer, some amps and a box of glowsticks? A great album from new band And Then There Were None.
Courtesy of New Hampshire, the five-piece group delivered its debut album, Who Speaks for Planet Earth?, Feb. 24, after signing on to Tooth and Nail records last year. Originally metal rockers, frontman Matt Rhoades decided to tweak the band’s sound by ditching screams for clean vocals, and harsh breakdowns for synthesizers.
Buckling their seatbelts, the members of ATTWN launch their rocket into space with ?John Orr the Arsonist.? With synthesizers shimmering like the shooting stars and a tuneful beat to hook the listener in, the song builds up to the even more energetic ?The Hospital.?
?She has my hopes and dreams/ and she’s the one I see/ who screams go on, go on/ she doesn’t know who I am/ I really want to tell her that this can’t go on tonight,? cries out vocalist Matt Rhoades in the single “Reinventing Robert Cohn,” with the fever of a man struggling with temptation. The song sends the hype through the roof with powerful layerings of the synth, guitars and haunting keys.
Most of the songs follow similar lyrical patterns of simple yet clever wording, with pensive somberness mixed with tinges of hope.
?Maybe I’ll be broken/ like the bones that carry me/ living life so lifelessly/ or I could be a good scene in a bad dream/ I could make it something beautiful,? begins Rhoades in ?Action is the Anecdote.? The drums build up energy to a heart-thumping chorus, and the song takes off dancing into the night.
Unfortunately, ?The Atmosphere? loses much of the amped adrenaline built by the previous songs ? the song seems to get stuck floating in the “atmosphere” instead of making the launch into the intergalactic. ?Cloak and Dagger? didn’t help much with its formulaic structure and a forgettable chorus.
ATTWN rallies by covering Richard Marx?s single ?Right Here Waiting.? While artfully reinventing the ballad with nostalgic, catchy synth beats and hopeful vocals, the song seems to ironically interrupt the rest of the music flow because of its individuality.
The band returns with another winning track on ?Thank the Watchmaker,? a soft meteor shower of layered synths, guitars and pounding drum beats.
?The Alamo? gives ATTWN ?one last chance to watch the midnight sky.” The energetic track surprised me with its strength in a place where most artists slow down and start packing up their album (which did, unfortunately, happen with the closer, ?Insozzz??).
Despite a few flops, this talented group of starry-eyed musicians sends a nice package of artful and fun music addressed to the nearest solar planet?s dance party. Though some of the songs slump into monotony, the rest show what And Then There Were None can create, and its potential for a stellar sophomore album.
