Motion City Soundtrack Make Major Label Dud
A major label hurts Motion City Soundtrack as the band tries to evolve.
Motion City Soundtrack
My Dinosaur Life
Released on Jan 19, 2010
It takes balls to come out and tell your audience you’re not the band you once were. Motion City Soundtrack front man Justin Pierre doesn’t even take twenty seconds into the first track of My Dinosaur Life to do it. One of the first lines of “Worker Bee” goes “I’m through with the old school, so let’s commence the winning,” which is a pretty strong manifesto for your band’s major-label debut. The only problem is, a statement that loaded only works if your record is up to snuff. Which, by and large, this isn’t.
This record for the most part is one of those experiments in musical evolution that bands misguidedly attempt when trying to become more accessible, while completely losing sight of what made them so popular to begin with. In some cases it makes sense, but here it boggles the mind to consider how a band like this could think they needed to fix their formula. They could’ve gone big with the synth-pop sound that made them famous and become a massive crossover hit. Instead, they’ve put forth songs like first single “Disappear,” which sounds more like Alkaline Trio’s lesser recent albums.
MCS have always been a cut above the new-millennium emo scene that spawned them, partly because of their oddly uptempo sound and in much larger part due to Pierre’s capabilities as a lyricist. With Life, both of these things have seemingly dwindled. While it’d be unfair to expect Pierre to keep writing at the level of Commit This To Memory for the rest of his career, it’s reasonable to expect better than filler like “Hysteria” or “Delerium,” which sees him digging back into the medication and depression lyrical well that’s informed some of his best work but appears to have run dry. And then there’s the inexcusable “@!#?@!,” which sounds like it was written by an angsty high school sophomore, repeated shouts of motherfucker and loosely ironic shoutouts to one’s homies and all.
What’s worse is that there are one or two tracks that serve as a reminder of what this band can do when at their best. “Pulp Fiction” is one of their best songs to date, as it incorporates the pop culture referencing and earsplitting synth of their best stuff with string arrangements and an arena-ready chorus. This is what growing up was supposed to sound like for this band. Even “Stand Too Close,” which doesn’t necessarily pay off, at least shakes the instrumental arrangements enough to grab attention.
Overall, though, there’s just too much filler here to justify. The band tries to go heavier, gets rid of the synthesizers and pop influence for the most part, and what do you get? An album that sounds more like late-‘90s alt-rock than a Motion City Soundtrack album. You have to wonder if even Pierre gets what’s going on during “Skin and Bones,” when he asks “What if there’s nothing more to me?” It’s hard to say, but with an album that takes this steep of a dive from their past work, you have to wonder.
High Point
“Pulp Fiction,” which takes the new direction MCS have chosen and successfully fuses it with their old sound.
Low Point
“@!#?@!” Not only is the title obnoxious, but also panders to the ghetto-fabulous new emo culture that’s likely going to eat this album up.
Posted by Dominick Mayer on Jan 14, 2010 @ 9:15 am
