The recording industry has seen its share of famous musicians' children trying to make a name for themselves. The first examples of this that spring to mind are The Wallflowers (fronted by the son of Bob Dylan), Wilson Phillips (a girl group from the lineage of Brian Wilson and The Mamas and the Papas), and even Norah Jones (whose father happens to be Ravi Shankar). While there are cases where one of these young performers is simply coasting on their parents' success, it is also true that sometimes good musicians beget good musicians. Fiction Plane is one of the newest entries in that category, and given the band's reluctance to mention their flesh-and-blood connection to a famous musicians, one can only assume that the band is legitimately trying to make it on their own.

To be specific, the flesh-and-blood connection in this particular band belongs to lead singer Joe Sumner, who is the son of Gordon Sumner, a.k.a. Sting. Don't be fooled - Joe might be a regular chip off the old block in terms of the quality of his voice, but this British trio has taken a decidedly different path than the former Police-man. Instead, they sound quite a bit like a young U2, trapped in a parallel universe where the whole "alternative" revolution happened in the late 70's or so, leaving a more cynical influence on that group's work. At least, that's the explanation that works best for me, because Fiction Plane's 2003 debut, Everything Will Never Be OK, often leaves me feeling like I'm listening to Boy or October without the religious fervor. In its place is a slightly depressed weariness that admittedly isn't as appealing, but then again, this isn't some gloomy down tempo alternative band here. Fiction Plane's music seems to be a cross between the feistier, protest-driven side of early U2 and the sunny jangle-pop of some of REM's more popular material (albeit less cryptic).

Admittedly, I probably would have never come across this band if I hadn't caught them opening for Switchfoot and Lifehouse back in June. The group knows how to tear it up in a live setting. It's unfortunate that despite their knack for energetic and catchy rock songs, that energy doesn't quite translate to a studio album format as well as it could. Perhaps having all of the elements of the music clearly audible brings more focus to the lyrics, which in several cases could use a little bit of work. The band is certainly capable - guitarist Seton Daunt certainly has more in his bag of tricks than the usual power chords you hear from so many modern rock bands, and because of this, it's very easy to imagine Fiction Plane existing as they are in a completely different era. But for every uplifting or intriguing song, there's another one where Joe and his pals seem to be just plain bummed out or ticked off. Something about his voice makes this start to get a bit grating after a while - his songs can often be an uneasy balance between preaching and wallowing. But at the same time, this is the debut record by a band still finding the best way to use their collective assets. And when they're at their best, they're quite loveable.

Listen to My Babe
I'm incomplete in every way
I forgot to feed my babe today...
The band's debut gets off the ground with a strangely self-conscious guitar riff that loops over and over, fooling the listener into thinking this will be a standard song in 4/4 even though Joe's lyrics tend to match up the riffs in groups of three. (That's a tough concept to explain but Fiction Plane actually pulls variances of this quite a bit.) Joe doesn't waste any time getting into his most whiney mode, and I guess it's appropriate for this song, since he's griping about how his "babe" is constantly needing something from him and he can't get any space. The song kind of lumbers along like the awkward teenager that it seems to describe - a guy who's not happy in his relationship with an extremely clingy girlfriend, but who lacks the willpower to escape. While there are times when the song seems a bit juvenile (especially when Joe poses the question "How is it that I care so much/And still forget important stuff?"), the band makes up for it with quirky guitar playing and an ultimately memorable vocal from Joe, especially at the end of the chorus when he belts out the word "Disappea-ea-ea-ea-eared!"

Everything Will Never Be OK
There's a lack of oxygen inside this town
It stops my brain from getting me high...
The album's theme song is, to put it simply, a cynical rock band performing three-chord jangle-pop of the highest order. The musical arrangement here seems almost too simple, and you almost want to smack the guys for sounding as happy as an old Beatles song while they assure you that indeed, everything will never be OK. But I guess that's part of the irony, and ultimately it makes for a great song. Listening carefully to Joe's lyrics, which deal with the vain pursuit of total happiness, I'd have to say that I agree with him, as depressing as that might sound. Sure, you might find a lot to enjoy here on this planet, but ultimately there's always going to be that ache inside of you for something you don't have yet. It's human nature, and the band makes no apologies for sticking it to the people who are "livin' in a world of music and feel no pain". It's as if the pain is what lets you know you're alive. (I can't help but wonder if the reference to a Sting song was intentional when Joe sings "Every time I wake up, it's a brand new day/And I realize my body's designed to die", but then it's not like Sting's the only one with a song called "Brand New Day".)

Cigarette
I used to believe in love
You use it just like a glove
Stop the fingerprints from showing
Taking things when no one's knowing...
The band decides to stay in jangle-pop mode for the next track, but they kick the tempo up a notch just to make sure you know they're a little frustrated. Actually, this song's more on the bitter end, beyond your average Matchbox 20 composition, because Joe's not only addressing an ex here, he's addressing an ex who smokes. (Boo! Hiss!) Actually, the way he tells her off is somewhat called for, since she apparently thought he was a lonely celebrity's son who would fall for pretty much anybody who made it easy for him. And maybe he did fall for it at first, but apparently the realization that "To kiss you, I must drink my meth" made him realize this wasn't exactly what he had in mind. The song pulls no punches, and that results in a few more sophomoric lyrics and unfortunate f-words at one point (actually, what's even stranger is the fact that he lets the word fly in the third verse of the song but then censors himself when he goes back to repeat the same lines), so ultimately it ends up being a lyric that I agree with, but think it could've been expressed in better terms.

Hate
Don't tell me to look at myself
I know that I don't exist
I am perfect, I don't exist
In your stupid human world...
The band's first radio single is definitely the crown jewel of this collection. They certainly aren't shy about diving headfirst into U2's territory with a blazing guitar riff and a militant, larger-than-life attitude, but there's a major difference here, because Fiction Plane isn't singing about some political cause that they dearly love. (They'll get to that - no worries.) Instead, they're smugly informing us that "We're cool, we're different/And we hate things/Yeah, we hate things/We hate people." What follows is a diatribe about how people should keep their unique opinions to themselves and never dare to tell them that they're wrong. This is satirical sarcasm at its finest, people, because we all know that it's easy to get popular these days based on what you hate. Hating the mainstream, or the right-wing, or your parents, or heck, even yourself, is what makes the cool kids cool. Fiction Plane pulls this off with so much arrogance that you just have to assume they're playing pretend. There's one uneasy moment when the music falls away and Joe sings "Take a minute to think what's right", which made me squirm at first because I was expecting his hateful character to remove the mask and stop playing the role in order to drop a preachy climax on everyone - but instead he shrugs it off. "You'll be up until the end of the night!/Let's forget that people's problems are there/Turn on the TV, sit there and stare." Frighteningly, what he says rings true even though none of us wants to admit we're like this at times - "You know it's easier to kill than create."

Soldier Machismo
I don't wanna put myself at risk
So someone else can take their throne...
Keeping things decidedly up tempo, the band crashes through a fun little guitar intro before settling into another catchy sing-along. (Yeah, they've got a lot of those.) This is where they start to get political, and as with most young bands who get political, they lose a bit of their craftsmanship in their attempt to get a "war is bad" point across. It's not a bad song, but their point of view here is painfully obvious from the song's title, and as a result the song kind of rambles along for a few minutes and then makes its exit. Hey, I'm sure that getting drafted into the military is about as low on my list of fun things to do as it is on Joe's list, but his attempt to explain his views comes off less as humanitarian concern and more as saying, "Screw you guys, I'm gonna save my own butt, I ain't fighting in no war!"

I Wish I Would Die
To wallow in pain
Used to make me feel like I wasn't the same...
Just when you think they'd start slowing down, the band keeps cranking out fast numbers, once again using that trick of mixing their 3's and 4's to give the lyrics an interesting rhythm that seems to loop back around on itself and give Joe very little time to think in between each line. You might expect a depressing suicidal rant from the title, but I really don't think that's the intent of the song... to be honest, I couldn't tell you what it is about. It seems to involve a flashback to a boyhood experience or something, and perhaps this fits in with the lyric booklet's visual theme of everything getting old and worn down. The band seems to dwell on this concept quite a bit, so perhaps it has to do with an older person's wish to be released from needless suffering. The band does a good job of taking a quick, jumpy pop number and turning it into more of an intense rocker towards the end, though I do have to admit that some of Joe's more powerful singing on the high notes comes dangerously close to plain old yelling.

Fallow
Fearing silence, you just might
Find yourself awake at night
Imagining the things that could go wrong...
This all-acoustic track is a very different approach for the band, and it almost makes me wonder if someone different wrote it, because acoustic guitars are a rarity on the remainder of the album. As acoustic tracks go, I'm glad that they didn't make this one the obligatory slow song - the guitars, bass, and percussion are very light, but the song actually still bounces along very quickly. Joe sings in an extremely hushed tone, almost as if whispering to a friend for fear or startling him or her. He seems assured that "There will be better days" and that the best solution, rather than worrying about this constant process of everything aging, is to just accept it and find joy where it exists. I'm not sure whether it's an admirable view or a defeatist one, but it's interesting in the overall context of the album.

Real Real
A glowing hypnotist sells us a beauty we don't need
We give our days to nothing, but we're not prepared to bleed...
I have to admit that I thought this song was a bit lame at first due to how the guys belt out "Real, real, real" over and over during the chorus, as if their lives depended on admonishing us to be real, but once I looked at the lyrics, I realized that the song was a lot less straightforward than that. Truth be told, this shimmering rocker seems to have been pieced together from a few different songs, since the melody and style seem to change almost spontaneously in between the verses and choruses. It's filled with odd lyrics about being chewed up by bugs and a mouth without a face and so forth, and the semi-repetitive chorus culminates in the line "What are the chances someone paid for me to grow up?" That line makes me chuckle since this is one of the songs where Joe tends to sound a lot like "Sting junior", just due to the earnest nature of his voice. But then he gets overexcited and almost reaching the point of screaming again near the end of the song. Ow. Fortunately Seton holds it all together with some not-too-shabby guitar playing. It might be due to more rhythmic trickery on Fiction Plane's part, but I always seem to envision triangles or pyramids floating in the air when I hear this one - it's those pesky patterns of three again!

Everybody Lies
I can't feel the warmth from the gestures that are false
The hand that feeds me stabs me from behind...
When this song comes barreling in with its crash-course drums and guitar licks, it becomes easy to confuse it with "Soldier Machismo". This one's a little less radio-ready and more cynical, though, and I suppose this is the point where the joke begins to wear a little thin and the back half of the album starts to feel more like filler. Once again, the idea behind the song is summed up neatly in its title, and it becomes little more than a thinly veiled diatribe about being stabbed in the back by those you trusted. Hey guys, I know that nobody likes being deceived, but it's kind of a bummer when you just tell me that you lie and I lie and we all lie and basically, we might as well just accept it. Oh, and we might as well accept the fact that cheesy strings are required to work their way into mediocre pop/rock songs while we're at it, because that's what ends up happening here.

Sickness
Sat inside a church
Fashioned out of local birch
The priest chose psalms and let us pray
She lay still until this day...
Rarely have I seen a more apt title for a song. When this awkward mid-tempo tune comes crashing in with its odd rhythms and off-key verses, I'm just itching to hit that skip button. It's the worst of the worst as far as Fiction Plane's weaknesses go. Joe sounds bored and disinterested when singing the repetitive line "Do I feel love?/Oh boy, do I feel love", and the he switches into his louder, whinier mode during the entirely un-catchy chorus. I admire the attempt at rhythmic experimentation here, but unfortunately it mostly makes the song sound like it's coming apart at the seams. What few lyrics there are tend to be rather hopeless. I guess you can't win 'em all.

Silence
Silence when in pain
Silence when my thoughts may cause a slight unease...
Though this track is nearly as repetitive as the previous one, it manages to have quite a bit more life to it, perhaps because the band once again has the feisty arrogance thing going for them (see the line "Silence 'cause my mother thinks I'm beautiful"). This is one of those songs that the band just flies through like there's no tomorrow - this approach works well, because when they drag things out it tends to make the lyrical missteps more noticeable. Seton's guitars buzz around like an angry swarm of bees and bass player Dan Brown contributes some low-end rumbling - all in all it's a great example of the power of organized chaos, complete with a fall ending that bursts back into the song's intro, over which Joe blurts out a final chorus before pulling the plug on the whole thing. Very cool.

Wise
I tried to talk to my lover
But silence fell around me, I drew my last breath...
The final listed track on that album definitely has a bad-boy feel to it, especially with its odd chorus of "We though we were the government". The band really proved themselves as a force to be reckoned with when jamming on this one as their closing number in concert, and while parts of it come off as a bit thin here (especially the aimless bass noodling and electronic noise that takes up space between the first verse and chorus), it eventually builds to become a fiery rocker with some of the best guitar riffing on the entire record. It's a few steps away from being a modern spy movie theme. It's interesting that Joe inserts the line "I tried to talk to my lover" into the second verse, since it almost seems to be a reference back to "Listen to My Babe", and I'm not sure how it relates to an otherwise political-sounding song... but I'm enjoying the intrigue.

Bongo
I am only myself
And you are everything else...
The final track on the album actually extends to over fifteen minutes in order to hold the requisite silence that separates "Wise" from this progressive-leaning hidden track. Apparently it got its name from the fact that Joe plays bongos at the beginning of it. The guys actually get into a nice relaxed jam-band sort of vibe here, though this builds over time with a tempo that increases ominously while some weird, distorted guitar effects begin to shatter the mood, and before you know it, the calm trance has all but dissipated into another furious protest song. I have no idea what Joe's going off about when he sings "Don't tell me that you fight for principles/When you fight for yourself" again and again at the end of the song, but I'll be darned if it doesn't sound cool, in the innocent 60's rock sort of way. It's a fun little experiment that may or may not make some sort of grand statement - hard to tell because the band seems unsure of whether being vague or being direct works best for them.

I know I've been hard on these guys - I really do appreciate their debut record even if there are more than a few points where I think they could use a little help. Sometimes it's actually nice to see a young band that lets it all hang out, awkward lyrics and song ideas that didn't quite work and all, because it gives the record a more organic feel. For sure a lot of criticisms could be leveled against Fiction Plane's album, but sterility isn't one of them, because the band is definitely alive and kicking. Now they just have to figure out what they're alive and kicking for. But in the meantime, I'd have to say that there's more to this album that's OK than the stuff that isn't OK. And that ain't a bad place to start.

ALBUM WORTH:
Listen to My Babe $1.50
Everything Will Never Be OK $1.50
Cigarette $0
Hate $2
Soldier Machismo $.50
I Wish I Would Die $1
Fallow $1
Real Real $.50
Everybody Lies $0
Sickness -$.50
Silence $1.50
Wise $2
Bongo $1
TOTAL: $12

Band Members:
Joe Sumner: Lead vocals, guitar, additional drums
Seton Daunt: Lead guitar
Dan Brown: Bass, backing vocals, keyboards
Abe Laboriel, Jr.: Drums (for this record only)
Paul Wilhoit: Drums (joined after this album was recorded)

Website: http://www.fictionplane.com

Recommended: Yes

Great Music to Play While: Driving