How Close to Good is Real Close?
Ms make meh music.
The Ms
Real Close Ones
Released on Jun 03, 2008
For a band that claims to hail from Chicago, The Ms sure don't sound like anything from this side of the Atlantic Ocean. Really, they come off as more of a Brit-pop/psychedelic/indie group. They rely heavily on distorted guitars and vocals that range from extremely nasal to a falsetto that borders on annoying.
The first track of Real Close Ones gets your hopes up that the album might be pretty good. "Big Sound" has a good mixture of distorted guitars, odd electronic sound effects and distorted vocals that has you tapping your foot almost immediately. The effects layering on the vocal track make the lyrics almost impossible to understand, but somewhere between the keyboards, simple-yet-catchy bass line and the inclusion of a brass section, you really stop caring what the lyrics say because the song is really good. If only the same could be said about the rest of the album.
As "Big Sound" trails off, the album loses the hook that had been set with the first track. The last minute of the track is just a tailing-off collection of held notes and electronic sound effects. What follows is "Breakfast Score", a track that makes "Big Sound" seem like speed metal. The instrumental portion of the song is actually pretty decent, but where it falls short is in the vocals. Where the vocals on the opening track were distorted and up-tempo, those on "Breakfast Score" sound like the singers just took half a bottle of Quaaludes.
In an album that is composed almost exclusively by mid-tempo tracks, songs begin to blend together. On a handful of songs the vocals are too distorted; many times this ends up being a blessing in disguise because more often than not, you'd rather just hear the track as an instrumental than have it ruined by weak vocals. One great example is "Get Your Shit Together". The song has a couple of great instrumental portions that, with the right voice, could have been amazing. However, the whiny apathetic vocals on Real Close Ones take what could have been incredible and handcuff it to a fence of mediocrity.
As a whole, Real Close Ones fails to deliver. At times, The Ms show that they have some real potential but it's never fully realized. The album is bogged down by too many mid and low-temp tracks that just make the songs indistinguishable from one another.
High Point
"Big Sound" is a bit heavy on the vocal distortion, but that actually adds to the quality of the song.
Low Point
"Breakfast Score" slows the pace down too much, especially after the upbeat opening track.
Posted by Cory Roop on Jul 07, 2008 @ 6:45 am
