Thank You Donny

The Butt End of Ten Beers (2005)

Jordan Rogowski

Thank You Donny are next up in the line of ultimately forgettable punk rock acts. You know the type -- they have some good tunes, but just lack that extra something to set them above the onslaught of bands playing the same chords in a different order. They've got an angry punk sound, but the instrumentation is what ends up dragging them down to the depths of mediocrity. It mostly sits in the background, while singers Jon and Ben Bramhall raspily speak over the distortion and barely audible drums.

Six songs, 20 minutes, and the band simply isn't able to establish their sound at all. I can't pin it to anybody else, but these rhythms, these vocals, they sound so familiar. The only track with any real variation is the third.

Starting out with some very light acoustic strumming, the song slowly plods around its course for a little over a minute before the vocals come in. Somber, but at the same time, somewhat incomprehensible for the first few verses, it's got a solid emotional quality that wasn't previously seen. It's short lived, however, as the heavy distortion of the guitarist and other vocalist kick in, sending everything askew. When both men sing at the same time it sounds incredibly off, just incredibly out of tune. Their inability to work well off each other shows too much, though, to really be able to give the song much credit at all. The final track also starts off rather slowly before picking up a bit of steam, but it's too little too late, seeing as the louder this band gets, the less enjoyable their songs become. In 20 minutes, I really just could not find much to like.

That's not to say I didn't try -- I gave it a shot, but these guys simply don't bring much to the table.