armsbendback - The Waiting Room

When I graduated college this May, it was kind of anti-climatic, because I have to return in June to take 6 hours worth of credit to fulfill the hour requirement of my major, even through my total transfer hours are 172, and the graduation hour requirement is 125. Things just don’t work well academically when you jump around a lot. What, you may ask, does this have to do with The Waiting Room? Academically, it’s not a good idea to jump around, go all over the place. But for music it’s okay, even cool. It’s okay to experiment with your sound, to jump genres... even on one album. It’s really great when your songs don’t sound the same or when you don’t spout the same lyrical themes in every song on your album. Godsmack does this well. But I own only one Godsmack album, and it wasn’t exactly a willing purchase. So I have to say that I would also not willingly purchase ArmsBendBack’s The Waiting Room for similar reasons. Sure, there are some redeeming qualities, such as singer/lyricist Mike Coasey’s pleasant and plaintive yowl and choruses (done best on tracks like “Countdown to the End of the World” and “Gary Gilmore’s Eyes”) and the awesome metal-speed drumming of Andrew Kegerise. But these redemption pieces do little to make the album a spectacular event. It’s self-indulgent in a nu-Incubus, emo way that’s unattractive to the quality of the music, and the “Alls you do is walk away I’m drowning/I can’t think about anything but you/Shut up I hate you” lyrics are very, very tired. Very. Armsbendback are probably an excellent live band, and they are earnest and have a good thrash around in angst, rock sound, but since every song on this album has some scream of dissidence accompanied by the now-hackneyed loud/soft dynamic, I am nonplussed. [www.armsbendback.com]