The Bouncing Souls - Anchors Aweigh
The Bouncing Souls hold a special place in my heart. They are one of my favorite live bands. I don't know what it is about them but when they are onstage everything just comes together. I also own (aside from this) The live album and Maniacal Laughter. I think the Tie One On is the best fifteen minutes of live music you will find. And while I don't actually own How I spent My Summer Vacation, I still pretty much got it down. I was not into this album as much as I could have been when I first started listening to it. It didn't seem to grab me as much as their last one. However it starts out in similar fashion. Listening straight through I never really cared enough to make it to the end. However I think that Kids and Heroes Is a good enough song, and it is not just good, but very good, that it will get stuck in your head and make you want to listen to the album more. The group sing-a-longs are as emphatic as ever, my only problem is that you have to find them. Much of the album and it's songs are only about half good. It's unfortunate because the parts that are good are superb in everyway. You have to cut through choppy intros or not so great verses to get to a really wicked chorus or just wait til the end of the ong to get to the best parts. A true Bouncing Souls fan will either not care about this or simply think I am wrong. I find that all the goodness in it is well worth anything bad. And I don't think there is too much of that. It's more that I am disappointed because it's not awesome ALL the way, then anything is bad. It does get a bit slow in the middle of the album. However the back half of it is awesome and the front half has alot of the sing-a-longs. Track(s) of Love: This is a really tough call. I could probably list half the album, and I am struggling to even narrow it down to three. I think the best Sing-A-Long is Track 2: Kids and Heroes or Track 3: Sing Along Forever. I think that these are the songs they play from the album so I must be right. It's really hard to pick another one. Probably Track 11: Blind Date or Track 12: Highway Kings. I honestly couldn't pick just one. I like alot of songs for different reasons. We will say Kids and Heroes and Highway Kings just for the sake of things. Track(s) of Doom: This one is also hard, but I think I can get one. Track 5: Born Free. It's too fast and too generic. And even though it's not even a minute and a half it still takes way too long to get to the good part. So this one is my Track of Doooooom. Now it's time for the final marks. On a scale that goes from -5 to 5 I give this album a 1. It's lower than I probably would have liked to give it but I think that while it shines, it doesn't shine enough. Maybe I am just comparing it to previous outings but so what. It's way better than anything on the radio and while it does strive it only reaches the plateau that is 1 rating.
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