Reggie and the Full Effect

Under The Tray (2003)

Scott Heisel

Either you love Reggie and the Full Effect or you hate them. Plain and simple. For all the Reggie haters, this album will certainly not win you over to their side, but sadly, if you're a fan of the ridiculous side project, this album might be the last straw.

See, "Greatest Hits 84-87" was great. No, it was beyond great. It was a comedy album that took itself just seriously enough, crafting inexplicably simple songs about girls running away with hilarious sound bites to make an amazing disc that has yet to be repeated by any of the Reggie clones currently in existance, mostly because said clones don't seem to get the humor in it.

"Promotional Copy" was a bit of a turn for the worse, with an overabundance of skits taking over the CD. On the upside, the disc introduced two more of James Dewee's creations - 80's synth-pop star Fluxuation and Nordic metal band Common Denominator. While over the top, both were honestly really damn good.

So James has one amazing album under his belt, and one good album under his belt. So where does "Under The Tray" fall? Probably under the "painfully mediocre" file.

Out of the 17 tracks on this album, 9 are billed as actual Reggie songs [2 featuring Sean Ingram as Hungary Bear, and 1 featuring Andy from Hot Rod Circuit]. Fluxuation and Common Denominator both get a track on here as well, with the former's "MOOD 4 LUV" being a wonderful dance through 80's cheese-synth, where as the latter's "Linkin Verbs" is a terrible, terrible disappointment. It doesn't even warrant a chuckle from me.

The other 6 tracks are some of the soundbites that Reggie has been known for, but to be honest, they're not all that funny after the first listen or so. Each one of them kill any momentum the album has been carrying [which in most places isn't much momentum at all].

Dewees can still write a killer hook, though, as evidenced in "Congratulations Smack & Katy." The rest of the Reggie material on the album, however, is pretty weak. It was cute the first time around, and it was acceptable the second - now it's just getting annoying.

There's not much reason to purchase this album, especially if you have "Greatest Hits 84-87." It's the only one you really need. Sadly, if you've heard that one, you've heard them all, but just better.

MP3s
Congratulations Smack And Katy
Getting By With It's

Stream the entire album here.