Building Rome
Review of "Nightmare"
By Angus Maiden
January 2009
The first track off this album immediately soars to my top 20 tracks of all time. Epic in
scope and majestic in realisation, it's flat out a hit. Perfect production, absolutely flawless
execution of riffs, vocals and rhythms, a politically driven message, and an absolutely
outstanding breakdown makes you want to play it over and over again. It's spine-
tingling stuff.
Unfortunately the whole album, whilst passionately created and something I myself
would be extremely proud of, doesn't hold the same power as the opening track.
There is a sense of commercialism about this album that just doesn't quite click
with me, but, for woe, will with the masses.
It feels that they followed a formula. Heavy rock track followed by upbeat pop track
followed by ballad, have a bowl of cornflakes and repeat. The lyrics could be pro-
duced by a computer that had listened to lots of Britney. The riffs are extremely catchy, they know exactly what they're doing but sorry guys, it's just a bit naff. There is nothing spontaneous, raw or exciting about this album.
Except the first track!
It's almost as if they wrote and recorded that track and thought "Holy shit this is amazing, let's quickly write some more stuff and get it recorded and sell an album!"
But perhaps part of me is just jealous of the absolute precision with which these guys have velcroed together their target audience and their music. This will be a popular album and it will make them lots of money, and hey good on 'em because a lot of time and effort has gone into this and it really shows. But at the same time it's sad, because it makes me realise we're still in the era of boy bands and girl-power pop, except in the approaching new decade it's clear that "Indie Rock" has taken the reigns from the RnB and Pop guys.
This is future of commercial music, and it's pretty banal.
Except the first track!
!
!!
So... have a listen and buy the tunes for a very reasonable price at iTunes or by going to buildingrome.bigcartel.com.
If you're a fan of Story of the Year / Fallout Boy sort of stuff you'll love the whole album, and if you think like me you'll cringe. But seriously, that first song: wow. Alone in it's incandescent brilliance it outweighs the naffness of the rest of the album. For that I doff my hat to Building Rome, who have shiny roads of success ahead of them. Well done guys.
"..perhaps part of me is just jealous of the absolute precision with which these guys have velcroed together their target audience and their music." - Angus Maiden
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