The embarrassingly catchy punk pop machine that is Cute Is What We Aim For starts off their debut album with something very few would dare: bare vocals. Sans instruments, drums, or any musical cover, you have six seconds of the honest and somewhat shaky Shaant Hacikyan in front of you, before he steps back under an umbrella of guitar and drums.
This album has a lot of things, and modesty is certainly not one of them. The band offers no apologies for filling their songs to the brim with lyrical complexity – assonance, alliteration, and tons of internal rhyme – case in point, the album title, The Same Old Blood Rush With A New Touch. Your high school English teacher would be proud.
Few bands would drop lines like “I’m obsessed and stressed with this mess I can’t think of things” for fear of overdoing it, or looking like they took notes at Open Mic Freestyle Friday. But to Cute’s credit, they are persistent and consistent enough that they actually sound like they know what they’re doing.
The lack of modesty goes hand in hand with the abundance of narcissism and self-admiration. It is best summed up by the intro to one of their songs: “I’ve got the gift of one-liners.” If that doesn’t shout SELF-INVOLVED, please adjust your sets.
Content aside, the delivery is adorned with clean low-distortion guitars, well-timed hooks, and synth-friendly versolos (when a lead guitar doesn’t do a solo, but does that repetitive, distinguishable arpeggio over a verse… okay, I just made that term up).
Curiously, there has been plenty of negative press surrounding this band, with accusations of heavy post-production on this exact album (Auto-tune Works Wonders!) and large funds from Daddy pushing the success and signing of this band to Fueled By Ramen. But bad press is good press, and if they can do it on stage as well as in the studio, then to hell with the critics.
-JP
http://www.cuteiswhatweaimfor.com/
http://myspace.com/cuteiswhatweaimfor/
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June 20, 2006 – The Same Old Blood Rush With A New Touch
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