#440/1075
November 3 1985
The Alarm
Strength
Genre: Rock
3.75 out of 5
With the scads of happiness and anthemic joy that Declaration brought me, I have no idea why I eschewed this album. Did I hear something that led me to believe it wasn’t good? Did I just think that the first one was so perfect that I couldn’t bear to even hear any more? What is wrong with me? I do this a lot. Love an album, never listen to any more by the artist.
You know who must have loved The Alarm?
Against Me!. “Knife’s Edge” could’ve been covered on White Crosses and I would not have known it was a cover.
Something’s missing, though…Mike Howlett isn’t Alan Shacklock. He’s trying to make The Alarm sound like they belong on the radio and it’s that Civil War rock band sound that worked so well for them. It’s what separated them from U2 while mining the same tropes. Now they sound like a U2 wannabe band. Dammit.
In the end it sounded like a secondary rehash of the first with none of the excitement or bombast or, really, fun.
No comments:
Post a Comment