Pop-punk and power-pop are a bit of a guilty pleasure of mine. When it's done well it can be a lot of fun and I have no problem buying into it. For this reason, I decided to give the Red Jumpsuit Apparatus' Lonely Road a chance. At about the 30-second mark of the first song it was already apparent that I had just voluntarily dove face first into the biggest pile of garbage of all time, and looking back on the experience all I can say is I'm happy I made it out alive.
Lonely Road is crammed full of some of the most mundane, unimaginative, and at times completely ridiculous songs I've ever heard. Lyrically lazy, most every song is limited to two lackluster verses and a forgettable chorus that feature poetry you could reasonably expect from an eighth grader. Instrumentals are exceptionally weak across the whole album. Each song follows the same formula and very little effort is put into diversifying them. On occasion a pinch-harmonic is thrown in but it seems that no one mentioned to the Red Jumpsuit Apparatus that making your guitar squeal doesn't count as being able to play the guitar.
Quite frankly there is nothing on this album that I would consider a redeeming quality. Most notable screw-ups include the country-rock title track, "Lonely Road," which takes a page out of Kid Rock's book, complete with a backing choir joining in for the chorus of "And Lord, it's a lonely roadâ¦" and the ironic "Pen & Paper," the subject of which is how things that have no substance will fade away and be forgotten. Also of note is the extremely out of place and very poorly executed Vietnam remembrance jam, "Godspeed," that closes the album.
The only thing of value that has come out of this album is the definition of bottom of the barrel. Don't waste your time on this album. It's too bad there's no way to rate it with a zero.