Is it a hit, *hit or miss?
|
The
Kicks - Hello Hong Kong
by Mark Hensch
|
The
Kicks - Hello Hong Kong
Label: Virgin
Records
Hit, *hit or
Miss?: Miss
Rating: 
A lot of people hate pop rock. In
a world where any good looking group of girls and guys can get together,
play some simple riffs, and sing catchy choruses in their boy/girl-band
voices, that aforementioned hate might be well deserved. The addition
to said rock acts into the CD towers of trendy kids at school and as a
set of scene noises for dimwitted sophomoric travesties like The O.C. doesn't
exactly buy most struggling pop rock acts much credibility.
Various scattered bands of the world music
scene are attempting to change such blatant stereotypes. One of these
bands is a band known as The Kicks, and their TVT Records debut Hello Hong
Kong tries its very hardest. At the very least, I am forced to give
this band, and others like them, the tiniest bits of credit for at least
trying to further the evolution of pop rock. The Kicks play a largely
radio-friendly brand of Eve 6 like airwaves rock that has a slight bite
to it at times. This rougher edge helps the band through several
low points on this album, and the use of a keyboard to add wailing or trancy
space effects also add some interest to the CD. However, this CD
is also not totally devoid of the Orange County Soundtrack curse; the lyrics
are sometimes lame, bland, generic, and un-inventive, and beyond that,
the Kicks' instrumentality occasionally lapses into bland surf rock at
times before regaining it's slightly more intriguing composure.
"Radar" blasts out with a nice amount
of stereophonic kick and some vaguely socially conscious lyrics.
The almost screamed chorus of "NOOOO! You Got What You Wanted!" is like
a bad case of Bubonic Plague. Once you catch it, it is imbedded in
your brain despite its almost whiny sound. The song harder rock for
this band, but soft when compared to most. It's oddly like a hard
punch from a friend who is joking with you; it is still a hard punch, but
it doesn't really have much force between the two of you as it isn't intended
to be truly heavy. "What do I have to do?" is a soft-to distorted
radio song that recalls Eve 6 a little too much, except for a surprising
little screech laden interlude on the keyboards halfway through.
"Satellite" is a painted-by-numbers surf rock jam that has a modest attempt
at a guitar solo nestled somewhere in the song. "12 Steps" is a crooner
ballad with slight distortion that already reeks of contrived teenage heartache.
Not even a background pulse of clean keyboard keys and a catchy guitar
interlude saves this song wholly from pop rock destruction. "Mir"
is a tight song that has zipper rip riffs (listen and you can hear the
little "zip" of guitars) and has an amusing chorus of "Cosmonaught, Cosmonaught,
I wanna be a Astronaught Yuh ohhh." This is one of the better songs
on the CD, especially with a Weezeresque burst of clarity before the final
rendition of the chorus. "The Exorcist" begins with an awesomely
strange intro that invokes some serious dreamy pop. This tame little
ditty will have girls swooning and most guys wishing they were somewhere
else; it is however deceivingly catchy and considering what it sounds like
it is a little fresh. "Pop Star Radio Crown" is a highly ironic modern
Beach Boys (what if the Beach Boys played musical volleyball with Weezer
and maybe a little Blink-182?) song that seems to mock the general state
of Pop Rock while turning any hope for a satire song into yet another love/heartbreak
song with a sugary chorus. "Bomb" is a almost hilariously lame heartbreaker
type song. "Pretty One" is a keyboard laden song that is just kind
of there. "Pill" soars into a driving riff with some rising guitar
as more crooning about the world's hurts ensues with plenty of "yeah-ee-yeahs"
to live off for a month.
"Ninety-Nine" is largely boring song worthy
of being Disney Channel fodder. "Jet" is song #12 of lovey-dovey
cinnamon rock with that slight little edge I mentioned before, and not
much else besides. This CD made little impression on me, and I count
it as being of little value for redefining and changing pop rock for the
better. I also will admit to generally avoiding this style of music
much like one would avoid an enraged grizzly bear, and after twelve sugary
tunes I remember what started that aversion in my mind. There is
nothing truly unique here. The songs are made somewhat intriguing
by both their catchiness and keyboard effects, but besides all of that
(which actually amounts to very little) this is nothing more than typical
surfin' good pop rock. As someone who generally prefers strange and/or
insanely heavy music, pop rock bands need to be more inventive if they
want to bring their lost brothers and sisters back to the sunny and carefree
days of their popular music youths. Certain bands (i.e. Weezer or
Motion City Soundtrack or even the Postal Service) have helped do this
regardless of how well they are liked or even how well they are known.
The Kicks as of right now are not one of those bands, but might have plenty
of time to try.
CD Info and Links
|
