MattA75's Full Review: Anthology [PA] by Alien Ant Farm
It's not often that a Michael Jackson cover song is what gets you noticed or what garners you major airplay, especially when you've only just released your first
major label record. However, that's just what happened to Southern California rockers Alien Ant Farm and their album, ANThology (note the Michael influence in that as well). After touring with acts like Papa Roach and on the Warped Tour, they finally released ANThology in May of this year. Their cover of Jackson's Smooth Criminal proved to be the ultimate guilty pleasure this year. Come on. Just admit it. As much as you wanted to turn the radio dial or the channel when the video came on, you just couldn't because you just thought it was cool that
someone made Michael Jackson kind of cool again.
In all honesty, while I did find Smooth Criminal to be a great guilty pleasure, it wasn't until I heard Movies for the first time that the band truly piqued my interest. It's one thing to make a "punkified" cover of some previous hit, it's another to come up with your own hit. Movies is a catchy rock anthem that should stay on rock and video charts for a while. The "new" video spoofs movies like Willy Wonka and Edward Scissorhands. Lead singer Dryden Mitchell shows a nice ability to use
metaphors to describe a relationship as being "like the movies." His vocal delivery is both full of passion and vigor. This is easily one of the rock singles of the year.
But ultimately, the question you have to ask is "other than those two cool songs, is there enough to warrant my spending $13 on this disc?" Well, to put it simply, this
disc is a mixed bag. At times AAF has pulled off brilliant songs, and at others, they come off like a 4th rate Papa Roach ripoff (who came off as 8th rate Rage Against the
Machine ripoffs but I digress).
The band has a penchance for writing catchy choruses. This is evident not only by the two singles described above, but in songs like the opening Courage, which makes up for the lousy verses that take up most of the song. Flesh and Bone is irritating as well, until the chorus, where the band salvages the song from itself yet again. That seems to be the main theme of the album: write cruddy verses, make up for them with catchy choruses that will hopefully make people forget the verses in the first place.
Summer is another one of the exceptions. It's an excellent pop-metal song that breezes along the way the title suggests. Meanwhile, Attitude is the most confident the band sounds on the entire record, and it's probably the most interesting song on the record. I like the restraint the band shows here, it's definitely a nice break from the over-loud anthems they seem to want to create with 3/4 of the songs on this album. Stranded tries to create the same type of vibe, but it's lyrics and the generic guitar riff are what holds it back.
With Wish, the band tries to sound positively evil. Sorry guys, I'm not buying it, not after watching you play lollipops as instruments in your video. This is the type of sludge bands who recognize their talent avoid at all costs. Evidently, Alien Ant Farm hasn't learned that yet.
On the other hand, Calico is by far the best song on the record. It reminds me a lot of the sound that the Deftones goes for on their songs. I'm really loving the tension built up during the verses, only to be released by Dryden in an emotional outburst on the chorus.
Death Day follows, and this together with Calico makes for a powerful one-two punch. When I mentioned the "sludge" earlier, I had this song in mind. It's such a gorgeous song, full of the type of atmosphere that I only wish could have pervaded through the whole album.
THE RECOMMENDATION
I want to recommend this album. I REALLY do. I want to tell you to give it a chance. But I can't. It just has too many misses on it that bring the whole thing down to average. I'd like to say that songs like Death Day make up for it all but I just can't. So here's the deal: if you could find this used for say $8 or so, it would be worth it. Or, if your local library has it (as mine did), take it out and give it a whirl. This band could develop into something truly special, but this album just barely gets the thumbs down.
In 2001, Alien Ant Farm released their single Movies, which was immediately overshadowed by the band s most prominent hit, Smooth Criminal, which had ...More at Buy.com
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