"You're so ridiculous/Stupid and immature/You're so predictable, is that what you're going for?"Funny how the first lyrics of the CD pretty much summed up what I was thinking was going to come from this Seattle 4-piece's debut. The bludgeoning intro and a scream that's all the rage these days leads into those words, bizarrely inflected, over a tribal-style drum beat and bouncy rhythm section, and I wondered how I was going to survive the whole CD. (I suppose in retrospect that sounding ridiculous when singing those lyrics was intentional...)
Of course, that's the problem with judging a CD from the first 30 seconds. Once they settle into the actual flow of the song, they're more in Velvet Revolver territory, and the song finds its way to several catchy but simple vocal melodies that I found myself singing along with as they repeated later through the song.
As the CD progresses, we get tracks like "Oxygen," another fun hard rock track with catchy vocal harmonies marred only by a misplaced scream, the heavy boogie riffing of "Monochrome Mistress" and "Drama Queen," the ballad "Crime," and the Muse-like "Cruel." Finally, as the CD winds up, they move into something somewhere between thrash and punk on "Bodies for Freedom," a song that alternates between angry grit and the silly "nanananana" vocal hook--and it works, instead of sounding hackneyed! There are several solos on the disc, and while they're not necessarily particularly jaw-dropping, they fit well within the music and it's always nice to listen to a band who actually know their way around their instruments.
In short, the remaining 45ish minutes more than make up for the poor reception of the first 30 seconds. There are plenty of great songs on Unlucky Stars that you'll find yourself grooving to when you're listening and humming afterwards. If you like hooky melodies and vocal harmonies with your loud gritty guitars, you'll love Point One.
