Oranger - New Comes And Goes

I picked up this album because I really enjoyed Oranger's take on "Mister Sandman" in the Stubbs the Zombie soundtrack (an album which you should pick up, by the way). After listening to this album for the first time through, I decided that I needed to give it another go - one shouldn't review music based on listening to an album once, right? One must allow the music to sink in. By the third and fourth time, however, I just couldn't take it. The album is boring. It's one thing to have to listen to annoyingly bad music day in and day out. It's another thing entirely to listen to an album that is just devastatingly mediocre, which is what you get with New Comes and Goes. The songs plunk along with very little variation or quirk. Have you ever listened to an album that had a couple of tracks that just had nothing going for them? You skipped those songs because they seemed to be filler songs; songs put in the album to get it past an hour long. Imagine an entire album made up of filler songs, and you'll have listened to Oranger's newest album. The only song that was somewhat rememberable was "Target You by Feel," and even though it was more easily listened to, it still felt like a cookiecutter type of song. Interestingly enough, this track is the only one not written solely by lead singer Mike Drake. Perhaps next time he should give the rest of the band more of a chance to help in the songwriting process. [www.oranger.net]