Prayers

Young Gods (2015)

Keenan

Prayers is a self described "cholo goth" duo from San Diego. That descriptor sounds very specific, but it really could lead down many different paths. Is it akin to Cyprus Hill rapping over stern, industrial influenced beats? Or maybe it's just gothic rock influenced by bands like Echo & the Bunnymen or Virgin Prunes? Well, it's none of those. Imagine a (thankfully hypothetical) scenario where New Wavers Heaven 17 collaborated with 3OH!3 and you'd be pretty close to what this EP sounds like. I only have Prayers to blame for imagining that scenario in the first place and I'm not sure I'll be able to forgive them for it.

Travis Barker acts as both producer and drummer here, spraying his splattered beats all over the songs in a misguided attempt to give them any momentum at all. Barker's drumming sounds incredibly out of place amongst the stilted vocals and basic synthesizers that he would have been better off just banging together the Monster Energy Drink cans that no doubt were lying all around the studio during the recording of this EP. The live percussion feels so disconnected from the rest of the instrumentation that I can only assume it was laid on top of the tracks as some sort of half assed afterthought.

The vocals are delivered in a yelp that gets whinier if the vocalist is trying to emphasize something specific in his sophomoric lyrics. It's easy to see that the lyrics are trying to paint a picture of the crime ridden streets that are all too common in Southern California, but when they're this insipid and non specific it's difficult to find them anything but cringeworthy. "If you're not in my circle / don't even bother / your crew's the type / that tells on each other." Skinhead Rob (of Travis Barker's other, other band The Transplants) shows up to deliver some throaty shouts to "Cnthonian" and, well, it's a head scratcher. The only purpose Rob's vocals serve here is to make his rapping in The Transplants seem much better by comparison.

Overall, this EP is an embarrassing case of a group getting help from a famous collaborator and making a worse product because of it. Not that Prayers would have fared much better without Barker (the instrumentation will give you a newfound respect of Wes Eisold and Cold Cave). But, hey, at least they can say they got in the ground floor on this whole "Cholo Goth" thing, so, that's cool, right?