The Rails - Life's a Lonely Ride

It turns out that getting a record deal now is pretty easy. Myspace has drastically altered the qualifications for studio contracts, and now every blog-pouring, drama-hating, My Chemical Romance obsessive with a computer is a talent scout. Turns out, they’re all whores for the same shit; screaming is necessary, power chords churn like gigantic hydroelectric dams, melodies must be huge--and constant. Fall Out Boy wins, The All American Rejects settle for closing credits on Laguna Beach, and record companies pretend that all their bands don’t sound exactly the same. It isn’t the end of the world; girls will always need something to listen to after their boyfriends sleep with their BFFs, but as cute kids with shaggy hair start recycling bands that have made careers out of recycling other bands that weren’t even good to begin with, it gets sort of nauseating. And with that I introduce The Rails, a label-less band from Cleveland that dreams of writing songs for a wiser-than-emo crowd that still needs something to heal the pain. It’s emo that wants with excruciating conviction to be more than emo, and after drifting through a number of agonizingly incompatible genres ('90s alt-rock, '80s college rock, aimless chamber pop), begrudgingly settles for power pop. See, Life’s a Lonely Ride would do well as Jimmy Eat World incarnate, it could probably even garner the band a record deal, but its ambitions run too high, and instead it finds itself straining to do something innovative and then sounding sort of like Jimmy Eat World. The problem is that all the record’s potential uniqueness comes in the form of drawing from too many influences and then ripping off all of them, song by song. The only sense of continuity is an artistic ambivalence and a depressing lack of energy that keeps the songs from being even forgettable good times driving music. The most depressing thing about Life’s a Lonely Ride is that its best song, “Tonight,” is the only one that fits perfectly into the category that the band struggles so ardently to avoid. It’s the reluctant thesis statement in an album that proves that sometimes home is in the high school cafeteria. Maybe next time The Rails will have figured that out, and will release an album full of the stuff that could quite possibly make them famous. Otherwise they’ll have a circle jaded critics used to better music giving them points for effort as they pan the new album. It’s a tough decision, good luck guys. [www.railsrailsrails.com]