Thursday 28 May 2009

Review - I See Stars - 3D

I See Stars - 3D

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8 out of 10

The debut album "3D" from Michigan's latest contestant in the battle for attention in the already over populated synth-pop-core genre is I See Stars (ISS). I'll begin by saying this is a very good release on the whole, bar a few mistakes which will be mentioned later. This album is for fans of the heavier side of the pop-punk spectrum with its metal-esque break downs and bitterly sweet synth ala The Devil Wears Prada, Alesana, Attack! Attack! and A Day To Remember.

In this genre of music it is very hard to create a stand out vocal performance as it is often drowned out with over use of vocoders but Devine nails a great appearance on the mic, seemingly drifting in and out of the electro creativity. Being a sucker for an A Day To Remember breakdown, I felt right at home with the pop punk choruses followed by metal-core breakdown formula adopted by ISS on this album.

The album flows very nicely, with a fantastic musical interlude track "The Ocean" which is neatly placed towards the later side of the album. The best tracks for me on this album are "The Big Bad Wolf", "Project Wake Up" and "Save The Girl".

So all in all this is a very good release and I'm sure to be listening to it over the coming weeks, but surely this cant be a faultless album? You'd be correct in thinking that, there is just one real white elephant on this record which comes in the form of the track "Sing This!" with Bizzy Bone from Bone Thugs-n-Harmony. It really is a messy track, you can't even make out what Bizzy Bone is saying and the whole track just seems tacky in comparison to the rest of the album, leave this rubbish to bands like 3OH!3 next time guys.

Listen: www.myspace.com/iseestarsmusic

Tracklist:
1. Project Wakeup
2. The Common Hours
3. 3D
4. I Am Jack's Smirking Revenge
5. Save The Cheerleader
6. The Big Bad Wolf
7. Where The Sidewalk Ends
8. Comfortably Confused
9. Sing This!
10. Interlude: The Ocean
11. What This Means To Me

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