Is this album even here? Does this even exist? When I put it in my CD player I hear completely generic by-the-numbers emo-pop with just a hint of punk, but there's no soul here. And I don't mean soul like Tina Turner, I mean soul like humanity. This album is completely devoid of all humanity whatsoever. There is no emotion here. It's like a team of scientists got together and calculated how to make an emo pop album. They fed hundreds of Jimmy Eat World and Getup Kids songs into a giant computer, and once the computer had succesfully broken down the formula, it spat this out. What is to keep me from confusing this with any other emo pop record out there? The songs aren't catchy, the lyrics aren't moving or even particularly interesting... It's like this album weren't even here.

I feel the exact same way when I listen to Ann Beretta. It's like, they've got the drum beat and tempo correct, they're playing the right number of chords, all the guitar solo thingies and backup vocals are positioned exactly where they're supposed to be, and yet... It's wrong. There's no creativity here, no passion, no love for the genre or music in general.

I can't even say that this record is really bad, per say. It's just boring is all. Even the naked women in the CD packaging do little to entice me into liking this album. I guess if you want to listen to generic post Y2K emo pop, maybe you'd be better off... I dunno, stabbing out your ears or something . And if you're into naked women in lyric booklets, I reccomend "Surfer Rosa" by the Pixies. "Black Dress in a B Movie" is pretty much completely unneccesary in every way.

In summary, this isn't as much something to be avoided at all costs as it is to just be ignored. Pretend it isn't even here, because honestly, I can't say for sure that it is.

Mitch
www.nothingnice.com