MattA75's Full Review: Golden State by Bush (Rock)
Back around 1995 or so, when the English band Bush broke through on American soil with their brand of catchy hard rock, they were labeled by critics as "Nirvana wannabes," cashing in on the sound that at that time was just about guaranteed to bring you success. As usual though, fans don't care about critics, and they lapped up the band's debut, Sixteen Stone like a prostitute...oops, family site Matt, this is a family site! Sixteen Stone went on to sell 6 million copies, and quite frankly, while I find it derivative, I still love it. Machinehead may be the best rock single of the 1990s.
The band's follow up, Razorblade Suitcase was released at the wrong time. The songs from Sixteen Stone had barely been stopped at radio, which meant this album was oversaturation, and, I believe, is what killed a lot of the band's fans. It sold half of what Sixteen Stone had. A remix album titled Deconstructed followed and it spawned one hit, and went gold. The band's fourth record, The Science of Things was more of an experimental effort, but still went platinum.
Last month, the band released it's fifth album, Golden State. Throughout the recording of this album, rumors had it the band was ditching the electronic experimentation of Science and going back to the basics, Sixteen Stone style. To a certain extent, that's true, although there is a bit of material here that's a little bit intriguing. For the most part though, the band has tried to re-invent Sixteen Stone for 2001/2002.
The album opens with some light guitar picking, followed by a dense bassline and simple yet accented drumbeat. My first thought was Comedown from the first record, and this song, titled Solutions, does reflect that song quite a bit. The vocal delivery, the drums, the bass, it's all the same, save for the added guitar. Sure enough, on the pre-chorus and chorus, the band rips into a nice hard rocking mode. As usual, lead singer Gavin Rossdale's lyrics are cryptic and abstract. By now, I've learned to accept this. After all, this is the same guy who wrote Greedy Fly. Besides, Bush hasn't ever really been about great lyrics (there might be one or two exceptions), but about catchy guitar riffs and a pounding rhythm section.
Headful of Ghosts kind of intrigues me. I like the light piano in the background, it adds a bit of depth and another layer to the music. Some people will see Rossdale's use of the word "terrorist" in the lyrics and jump all over it, but again, it's more abstract than anything else. I normally wouldn't make a comment like this this early in a review, but at the end of this song, Rossdale sings "Save me from myself." It would be nice if someone could save Rossdale from himself.
The People That We Love is the Everything Zen of this record. It has that creeping up on you feeling, the noisy feedback guitar on the intro and transitions. Luckily, the next song isn't nearly as boring. I like Superman a lot, especially the lyrics. Instead of being cryptic, Rossdale is seemingly taking pot-shots at the fans who left him: "crucified-for atonal sins re-invent myself, shed my alter-skin, try to break the mold." It's obvious he's directing his anger at someone, my guess is the fans. I really also like the guitar work from Nigel Pulsford on this song, it rings with a sort of hope and spirituality not found on any Bush record previously.
With Inflatable, the band tries to re-capture the soft rock audience it held thanks to Glycerine. Sadly, this song doesn't really go anywhere. Rossdale strains himself trying to sound like he actually has a really nice voice when we wants to. Sorry, Gavin old chum, I'm not fooled. The rest of the band mails the performance in, which doesn't help. They try again on Out of This World, and, while that song is immeniently more memorable than Inflatable, it's not much either. So much musical tension is built up throughout it, and it never gets released.
It takes the twelfth and final track, Float, to finally find a really good rocker on this disc. It has the same kind of anthemic tone that previous Bush hits had, but it's different. It's much more restrained and it actually has some swagger to it. It's the best song on the album by far.
But Float is the exception, not the rule, as evidenced by Fugitive and Hurricane, which seems like one long torturous track that will never end. That unfortunately, is more close to the truth of what this album is.
Sadly, we all knew this was coming. Bush isn't the most talented band in the world, which meant them "growing" as a band wasn't going to work out at all. So it was just a matter of time before Bush imitated Bush.
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