Earshot - Two

If a recording does nothing for me, I usually just let it pass into the bottom of the pile. I've been in this territory before (with Linkin Park and Static-X). When giving this Earshot CD a coupla listens, it occurred to me that this may be the last gasp of "modern rock". Gees, I sure hope so.

It also occurred to me that it would have been interesting to have been the proverbial fly on the wall during the label meetings concerning this group. Did they actually listen to this stuff? While they were pouring over the associated marketing analysis data?

Here's the condensed version of this music: angt-filled yearning guy hollers about how bad life & relationships are while down-tuned guitars make big wall-o-sound. Sure, bits of it are exhilarating in an X-Games kinda way...but it just doesn't hold up for any longer than 5 minutes or so. The song structures are also so homogeneous that you can almost create a text template. In the text below, the lowercase represents either quiet, muted guitar or perhaps bass-only while the uppercase represents full-on distorted guitar. Each song employs about four chords (not that there's anything wrong with four chords-only, far from it).

(...short, quiet blurpy synth intro, then...)
DUH-DUH-DUH-D-DUH-DUH-DUH-D-DUH-DUH-DUH-D-DUH-DUH-DUH
DUH-DUH-DUH-D-DUH-DUH-DUH-D-DUH-DUH-DUH-D-DUH-DUH-DUH

verse:
vocals over:
duh-duh-duh-d-duh-duh-duh-d-duh-duh-duh-d-duh-duh-duh
duh-duh-duh-d-duh-duh-duh-d-duh-duh-duh-d-duh-duh-duh

chorus:
screaming vocals over:
DUH-DUH-DUH-D-DUH-DUH-DUH-D-DUH-DUH-DUH-D-DUH-DUH-DUH
DUH-DUH-DUH-D-DUH-DUH-DUH-D-DUH-DUH-DUH-D-DUH-DUH-DUH
DUH-DUH-DUH-D-DUH-DUH-DUH-D-DUH-DUH-DUH-D-DUH-DUH-DUH
DUH-DUH-DUH-D-DUH-DUH-DUH-D-DUH-DUH-DUH-D-DUH-DUH-DUH

...repeat whole thing several times.

Seriously, if you can discern one tune from the next, you've got better ears than me.

Now, to be fair, Earshot are not without talent. There were a few places where the drummer played some pretty cool fills and singer Wil Martin can actually sing (when he's not reminding me of that dude from Tool.)

The record companies complain about "illegal" downloading as the source of all of their troubles? No way, they need to look in the mirror.

(First posted on Mark Is Cranky)

Article Author: Mark Saleski

Mark Saleski is a writer and music obsessive based out of the Monadnock region of New Hampshire. He is an editor and writer for Jazz.com. He also writes reviews for Blogcritics.org and produces the weekly feature The Friday Morning Listen. …

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