HUNDRED REASONS - QUICK THE WORD SHARP THE ACTION
April 01, 2009,
Written by The 405
Release Date: 13/04/09
Website: www.hundredreasons.com
Opening with an unnerving keyboard riff followed by a punchy Reuben-eqsue slice of clean punk rock, Quick The Word Sharp The Action promises brilliance. After Break The Glass, that first excellent track, everything is going well, with melody, driving rhythm and overall good songwriting. Then parts of 'Sick Little Masquerade' start to sound a little like My Chemical Romance or Elliot Minor...after this, the polished OTT vocals conjure up images of Gerard Way's pallid complexion and bad peroxide job far too often.
Thankfully we are saved by 'Pernavas Iela', a subdued instrumental which helps us get over the harrowing images of the tracks before. When we are relaxed again, 'The Shredder' is released into the airwaves: it sounds like The Prodigy on (even more) drugs. This is a good thing. In the second half of the album, things really pick up, packed with explosive gems like I'll Never Know, the riff-tastic Lost For Words and the unexpected, experimental Stalemate. A Little Way Back and The Prance are nice, more relaxed songs to end with, surprising tenderness injected into the lyrics and melodies.
You can hear a million other bands in Hundred Reasons, like Idlewild in pretty much all the vocal harmonies, Muse in She Is Poison and Reuben throughout (as well as the usual suspects, Nirvana, and Green Day when they were good). Although the album is basically an amalgamation of these influences, offering little new, it has some brilliant musical moments, good lyrics and catchy riffs. It's 16 tracks of quick-fire slick rock. The worst moments are when Hundred Reasons sound like a bad rip off of bad-rip-off emo bands, which sadly, they do a lot more than they ever have before.
Rating: 7.5/10
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