CD Review: End of the Year - Sincerely

It’s killing me. The vocals on this debut album, Sincerely sound exactly - timber, tone, pace - like someone else, but I can’t !@#$% remember. I should know. I do know.

The album will be released tomorrow.

End of the Year sound like ... what, “We Care A Lot”- era Faith No More, The Encircled. The Pleasure Elite? Green Apple Quickstep? The Offspring? Beck - or someone else on the Tank Girl soundtrack?

Can you figure it out? (audio clip (364k)). When I do you’re going to be able to hear my groan nationwide.

There’re riffs throughout the 11 songs and 28 minutes that pluck memory strings I can’t find the right note to. I’m in a sea of pain and a world of hurt trying to dig into the mystery of the tip of my tongue.

It’s a total mind-melt - and this is after a week of trying (off and on) to recall. It’s a 100% late 80s, early 90s vibe (no, not Matthew Sweet). My normally Ace-Up-the-Sleeve subconscious is failing me completely. Or as it says in the appropriately named “The Browns,” my memory’s shot to shit.

So, sincere and utter frustration is what I get out of this album.

Anyway, this album rocks. It is - as is clear from my mind lock - that it is cravenly derivative. The singer must be a father, because he’s mastered the “it doesn’t matter what you say” ethos, “as long as you say it in a soothing, familiar manner.” Every song is strained but urgent and then each sentence repeats.

So my advice to the band is, "You’ve jumped your careers from newbie right to established and establishment. Don’t be proud of your originality, but be proud to be entertainers."

Cover bands are big in Vegas. I can’t always say this even of bands I love, but these guys would be good in concert.

Band members Patrick Kindlon, Hans Leibold, Eric Busta, Andrew Duggan, Michael Brandenburg, grew from Albany, New York. They have a modernized Dolls (Goo Goo) sound that has a West Coast, plasticast feel. It’s light. It’s slight. It’s accessible and I’ve turned it up in the car.

But I don't think I'd ever buy an album from a cover band. Does Dread Zepplin count? Because I bought that one. And there was only one album from them, also not an unimportant point.

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NOTES
— A review from ScenePointBlank.com that says the band is drowned by its own effluence ... er, sorry, influences.
-- Band's My Space site for more sounds and sights.

Article Author: Temple Stark

A graphic designing wordsmith, with a decade-plus career in community journalism behind me. Take a mean photo, have a new camera, and have been riding the wave of Twitter for more than a year.

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