Blue Star Highway plays that certain brand of major key, plodding rock that takes itself just a bit too seriously and reminds me of the 77's or perhaps even Ned's Atomic Dustbin. A sort of very early 90's pre-grunge style of music that is exactly what your mom thinks of when she hears the words "modern rock". This is the music that thousands of people in Seattle rebelled against by tying flannels around themselves at belly button level and starting to do hard drugs. It's also a style of rock that requires a singer who can actually sing. Blue Star Highway's front man belts out a high vocal (I'm referring to a natural, human, male high vocal here, not the Klaus Meine of Scorpions fame's my-testicles-are-being-pressure-impacted-in-a-pneumatic-vice high) which is fairly true as far as melody goes, but wavers badly at points and lacks confidence. Still, he can hold a melody and although the melodies he sings prove relentlessly unoriginal as does the entire album, I appreciate his ability to convey a tune because as I've been terrified to find over the last few years there are many people who want to and in fact believe they can do just that, but can't.
I'll cut to the chase here and simply say that this album took me back to every bad garage band I've ever been in. All the hallmarks are there. Really cliche chord progressions used to execute said style of weak and painfully generic "rock" music. Tired lyrics which have been stretched to fit songs like some too-small skin being used to clothe a grown caveman which in turn has led to single words being sung for multiple bars. And of course, bad, bad, bad, horrific production value on the actual recording including a drum mix that sounds as if the snare drum was punctured and then covered with sand.
It's an effort, I'll give it that. But that's about all I'll give it. Lest you mistake some of the comments I've made that could be construed as positive, that's what we in the biz like to call giving someone an undeserved break. I had to do that or your screen would have caught fire when you opened this review. Make no mistake about it; this is the worst album I've yet to review for Decapolis.
1/4
