Published October 1, 2007
Sinking like a 'Lead' balloon
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1 out of 5 stars
Atreyu
Lead Sails Paper Anchor
Hollywood
After an exhaustive career with the Victory Records label, producing three albums and, yes, a Best Of compilation, this makeup mosh-rock outfit from Orange County returns with its debut album for Hollywood Records. On its myspace page, Atreyu defines itself as Metal/Rock. While "emocore" is a more accurate description of its sound, metal-rock perfectly captures Atreyu's strategy.
On Lead Sails Paper Anchor, the band oscillates mechanically between throated verses and poppy melodic refrains, steadfastly fixed to this formula. Songs such as "Lose It" and "When Two Are One" begin with "atmospheric" string work before introducing the standard churning guitars that systematically fill out each song. Ultimately the hidden-track cover of "Epic" by Faith No More comes across as the most genuinely played piece of music on the entire album. Due to its established position in the mainstream metal-pop scene, Atreyu continues to produce unsurprising music - a fact that pleases its many fans (I mean come on, it has sold more than one million albums) and leaves the rest of us wondering what purpose it serves or when it'll put out its second Best Of compilation.
GABRIEL BAKER
Left behind at the 'Station'
0 out of 5 stars
Metro Station
Metro Station
Red Ink
Metro Station's self-titled debut album can be summed up as the musical story of an underage boy who wants to bone an underage girl without getting caught by mom and dad. For band member Trace Cyrus, the pain of high school romance was so sexually frustrating that he teamed up with Mason Musso on Disney Channel's set of Hannah Montana (their little siblings both have lead roles). Together, the two worked out their teen angst the only way high school boys know how - they started a band. The entire album is so predictable a mathematician could write a theorem for it. "Wish We Were Older" opens with techno-influenced beats that try to compensate for the lack of artistry throughout the song and leads into a bridge of "Take my hand / I'll never let go" and "Thought I loved you now I hate you." Motion City Soundtrack and Fall Out Boy would be proud: Metro Station is a perfect prot
