Tsar
Band-Girls-Money (2005)
Jordan Rogowski
You cannot often tell much about a band, their ethics, or their music by something as trivial as the album title, especially not with so many bands opting to go the self-titled route. Every rule has its exceptions however, and on that note, consider Tsar and their album Band-Girls-Money to be tossed right into that exception category. Just by the band's sound and lyrics, it's all too obvious that after the band part of the equation, girls and money are all that really matter. Notice that music doesn't appear alongside those words in the way of importance? Well, does that ever carry over onto record.
Combining the most predictable, materialistic side of rockân'roll with a glam rock image, Tsar's songs are full of big choruses, heavy distortion, and unnecessary guitar solos. This all feels so predictable. Song after song follows the same path and formula as the one before it. The band mixes up the instrumentation once in a while, opting for the bass to be the lead in rather than guitar, but as far as diversity, the music really isn't any deeper than that. And the lyrics, oh boy.
There's no lyrics to speak of in the liner notes, so the stupidity comes in bits and pieces. I don't know if somewhere along the line the band made a conscious decision to spend about 3 minutes per song on lyrics, but that's the impression they're giving off; "He's got the band (yeah!) He's got the girls (yeah!) He's got the money! (yeah!)" The rest of what's to be found here is just as trite, and just as forgettable. That's half of this album's problem: It's just forgettable. The guitar soloing is the only element that sticks out above their otherwise regurgitated formula, but even those start to sound identical after a few songs. It's not necessarily the placement, but there's little differentiation between any guitar work. During the verses, the chords are bland and repetitive, and the one and only jolt of energy comes from the sixth track, "Wrong," which gives a healthy boot to the rest of this. Why is this the only track it seems like they cared on?
The rest of this album has absolutely no soul, which goes against everything rockân'roll was founded on. This is just a vapid, hollow piece of garbage. This is the kind of music that Mick Jagger and Roger Daltrey were fighting against.
Even Rasputin couldn't save something this sick.