Rap rock was one of those genres that was really hot for a while at the end of the 90’s and then collapsed in on itself extremely quickly. Once the rap rock bubble burst, it seemed like there was a pox upon the genre that kept new bands away, which at the time was probably a good thing. Since most of the bands that proliferated in the rap rock scene were pretty bad, it’s understandable that no band would want to enter a genre with such a negative stigma attached to it. Slowly, however, some bands stuck with the genre and a few new ones cropped up here and there again. The genre is far from seeing the massive expansion it had in the late 90’s, but there are more and more bands trying it out, including 3 Pill Morning.
For an independent release, Clarity is a nicely put together cd. The mixing sounds very professional, even better than some of the major label releases I’ve heard this year. The songs, which are really what this review is about, are pretty basic rap rock songs that feel formulaic and owe a lot to 3 Pill Morning’s influences. Two bands come to mind right away when listening to Clarity and they are Darwin’s Waiting Room and 38th Parallel. 3 Pill Morning definitely play very similarly to both bands, and at times they even sound strikingly similar to both.
This uncanny resemblance to other bands really detracts from the uniqueness of this cd, which any new band looking to establish itself needs, but then you have to remember this is their independent debut. Given some time to develop, I think it would be quite possible for these guys to develop into a good rock band with hip hop influences. If they focus more on the rap nature of some of their songs, however, they could easily travel down the road of many past acts that tried their hand at the same thing and failed.
If you enjoy the independent music scene, then definitely give these guys a listen because I think it might be possible for you to be hearing 3 Pill Morning on a larger scale than just independently released cds in the future.
3 stars out of 5
*this review was also published at Decoy Music.
No comments:
Post a Comment