International Businessmen

The Formula (2004)

Jesse Raub

The only thing more boring than having to listen to crappy music is having to review it. Yes, it is my duty to sit in front of a glowing computer screen with a cup of coffee and tell you how bad these bands are so you don't have to experience them yourself. Yes, it is true. It is my duty to suffer through all thirty-six minutes of International Businessmen's The Formula. And even though I lost the press sheet in the move from Chicago to Minneapolis, I do remember something referring to them as a mix between Yellowcard and Trapt. Ouch. It's like I didn't have to do any work trashing this band -- they actually hired someone to do it for me.

That being said, International Businessmen actually reminds me more of a bastardization of mid-90's Blink-182 and Millencolin. Remember when you were in middle school and you loved Blink because your older brother had it and they sang about dicks and poop? Remember then after that wanting more depth to your music and hearing your brother's Millencolin CD and thinking that all the different melodies and harmonies were pretty cool? No? Well, maybe that was just me. But I never owned albums from either of those bands, and I'm glad about that now.

Shitty melodic mid-tempo "punk" is over, my friends. Didn't somebody give these chump-monkeys the memo? They better grab some eyeliner quick and sing about inner turmoil and pain. Wow. This album could be one for the record books as receiving the lowest possible score I could give it. In other words, I would give it less than half a star if I could.