Lousy Robot - Smile Like You Are Somewhere Else
ben posted this review onMay 29th, 2008
Welcome All To My Weird Awakening
Opening hooks are supposed to make you want to keep listening to a song, right? Traditionally, a good hook grabs the listener, forces them to keep listening, and as the song continues, lets the song become more complex while still holding the listener’s attention. Perhaps Lousy Robot operates in a sort of musical opposite land – the opening hook of almost every song from 2005’s Smile Like You Are Somewhere Else leaves fingers grasping to lower volume or skip forward. Unfortunately, even skipping minutes into any given track won’t reveal a single note of musical originality –this is music for people who need hand claps and maracas to let them know when to bob their heads.
“Welcome All to My Weird Awakening,” Lousy Robot’s first track, begins with the band’s standard attempt at a “catchy” opening; two chords from a fuzzed out electric guitar, a few deft string plucks, and, as symbols crash, someone shouts a muffled “yeah!” followed by “hit it!” As the album lurches its way between indie pop clichés and rip-offs of the Rolling Stones, it’s clear that lead singer Jim Phillips has a decent voice and a way with lyrics, unfortunately these are buried by the band’s painful musical choices. In his better moments, Phillips channels Kurt Cobain at age 36. But Phillips is usually overshadowed by Lousy Robot’s Frankenstein approach to musical innovation –all the worst elements of the last 5 years of indie-pop and 45 year-old British Invasion, jammed together to form a single blandly offensive album.
