Gob

Foot In Mouth Disease (2003)

I was walking through my local music store the day and walked past their "New Releases" stand, and something caught my eye. It wasn't a band that I had heard of before, nor had my friend who was with me. An interesting name, Gob. But it wasn't the name that caught my eye, nor the interesting album name "Foot In Mouth Disease". It was the cover (which is one of the sickest things I've ever seen on an album cover). Curious to hear what the band sounded like, and the fact that the CD was only $5.99, I picked it up. Popping it into my CD player at home, I was soon listening to a pop-punk 4-piece band. Me, being a pop-punk fan (not that Blink 182, Sum41 crap, I'm talking good pop-punk), I liked the CD's sound. I listened to it from beginning to end, and had no complaints. Giving it a much more thorough listen, I began to find my likes and dislikes.

Track 1 "Lemon-Aid"-A good opening song for any album. It's great guitar work can easily get anyone into a frenzy. A good song.

Track 2 "I've Been Up These Steps"-A bland, unimportant song. Not even worth a listen.

Track 3 "Oh! Ellin"-An OK song. A basic "Woe is Me, No one loves me" song, which has seemed to taint pop-punk unfairly with this huge trend that Simple Plan has brought to America.

Track 4 "I Cut Myself, Too"- Probably my second favorite. The beginning music reminds of an Ataris song, I can't think of it now. It's a good song.

Track 5 "Fed Up"- My favorite on the album. It has great lyrics and a great sound. I could listen to this for days.

Track 6 "Ming Tran"-Another good song. A song that can make you wanna kick someone in the teeth.

Track 7 "When Life Gets Boring…."-A waste of the precious talent of your eardrums. No reason for this to be even on the album. Pure filler.

Track 8 "Give Up The Grudge"-A declaration of individuality and not following the stream (that's what punk is about, right?). My friend said it was a "Rich Kids Suck" song. (No offense to anyone).

Track 9 "Bones"-A nice refrain, but crappy verses. A decent song.

Track 10 "This Evil World"-A "The World Is Against Me" song. Not a good song, period.

Track 11 "I Hear You Calling"-This song has up's and downs. Good guitar starts and stops from strum to palm mute make up for this songs lack of originality.

Track 12 "Bully"-The singer is pretty much declaring "I've taken my shots, lets dish some out now" in the verses, but the song than explodes into an all-out scream/sing refrain. This song is definitely a change, which is what the album needed.

Track 13 "Cold Feet"-Sounds like an NFG song. Boring, another song about a girl.

Track 14 "Everybody's Getting Hooked Up"-A perfect ending song.

On a whole, "Foot In Mouth…" isn't a bad album. It's mediocre more than anything. But me not knowing the band Gob very well, I have nothing to compare it too. In whole, the album is just as interesting as its cover.