Lifehouse - Stanley Climbfall

There should be some sort of reprieve, some sort of law, banning artists from using up the entire quota of "easy hooks" per year. Even if it's a solid effort, like Lifehouse's Stanley Climbfall, it should be released in spurts maybe, or at a gradual pace so that you don't get knocked in the head each year with a morass of banal albums. Lifehouse- The blond kids with the slightly distressed, vaguely depressed and somewhat uplifting songs. Radish? Hanson? Nope, because Lifehouse got to be slightly more careworn and gritty due to vocalist Jason Wade's Scott Stapp-ish affected vocals. But affected vocals only get you so far. Hell, even affected guitars only get you so far these days. To catch my attention, I want to hear your lowest of lows and highest of highs. And I want them all to either rock my socks off or make me wallow in my own insecurities like Nine Inch Nails on a rainy day. I want bipolar action, I want manic passion. And not contrived (Stanley Climbfall gets points here- It's sincere) like the Vines, but totally passion. The songs on Stanley Climbfall are far from dispassionate, but they're hardly the sublime Longinus escapism that great art is suppossed to promise. If anything good can be said about Lifehouse's latest effort, is that the band has found a formula and have decided to stick with it. By the book. By the letter. Every song sounds the same, and that's sub-par, in my opinion. "Wash" sports the lyrics "You wash over me/ You wash over me like rain/ You wash over me/ You wash over me like sunshine" and thus illicits instant boredom. Yo- Sing about something different and not... hackneyed. The redeeming value of the song? A fleeting, hummingbird like resemblance to A Perfect Circle- But it's too quick to even really bother with. Toad the Wet Sprocket meeting 7 Mary 3 and having vaguely disgruntled coffee doesn't cut it for more than three songs, tops. "Just Another Name" is okay, but also cymbal hell. "The Beginning" reminds me of Peter Gabriel on a Valium binge, and "How Long" is boasted to be a bonus track, but it's hardly so: How can something be a bonus when it's the same as everything else? There's musicianship, there's an element of quality, but there's no oomph. This album is destined for Top 40 radio and nagging in the back of your head, because Lifehouse, despite their lack of originality, have quite a gift for hooks, but, in my book, that doesn't get you too far. Besides being, quite frankly, tired of this sort of thing, I can see how it appeals to the more simple minds (and that's not totally bad- We all have simple days), those who desire only background music from their 9 to 5 and back. But for those of us who seek release and purging from our music? You're not going to find it on Stanley Climbfall, that's for sure. [www.lifehousemusic.com]