Music Review: The Click Five - Modern Minds and Pastimes

Drum Roll, please! Brmmmmmmmmm... Let me introduce you to the The Click Five and their new album Modern Minds and Pastimes

Now I know some of you are already familiar with the band and their music, especially if "Just a Girl" is still on your iPod playlist. But for those who have never heard of the band or if you just simply have "heard of them", let me give you a bit of a background about who the Five are; besides a refresher is always good.

Straight out of Boston, Massachusetts, the band debuted onto the music scene in 2005 with Greetings from Imrie House, which placed 15 on the Billboard 200. The album was the year's highest-charting debut from a new rock band, according to The Click Five's press release. Their most memorable song of the record was "Just the Girl", which with its intensely uppity, feel-good lyrics always gets your blood pumping. Thus it's a perfect song to exercise to, not that I'm speaking from experience or anything.  The band members are: Joe Guese - lead guitar; vocals, Ethan Mentzer - bass, vocals; Kyle Patrick - vocals, rhythm guitar; Ben Romans &- keyboards, vocals; and Joey Zehr - drums, vocals.

With the days of "Just the Girl" behind them, the band has grown and in their new album they started to experiment musically with their personal musical heroes as the driving force. As Ben Romans states in the press release, "The puzzle is breaking it [lyrics] down to its pure essence. Lyricism is minimalist, and I like the challenge of writing pop music. It's modern art, like Rothko, in blocks, instead of doing an Impressionist painting." And I have to say that their new album is just that: modern, different, and definitely much more acoustically mature.

Each song is an individual, but interestingly as a whole the songs mix well with one another. The transitioning between tracks is very well done, making the listening enjoyable, instead of that "Dear God, what's this?" that makes your ears hurt. The lyrics are like Romans said: Art. Poetic in nature, they are creative, fun where fun ought to be had, and meaningful when there is need to carry emotion with them.

Continued on the next page Page 1 — Page 2

Article tags

Spread the word
Bookmark and Share
Profile image for agnieszka-klus

Article Author: Agnieszka Klus

Born in Rzeszow, Poland. I'm studying at University of Illinois, attempting to become an accountant. I prefer tea over coffee any day. Books and photography capture the soul, and beauty is truly in the eye of the beholder.

Visit Agnieszka Klus's author pageAgnieszka Klus's Blog

Read comments on this article, and add some feedback of your own
  • No image found
  • No image found

Article comments

Add your comment, speak your mind

Personal attacks are NOT allowed.
Please read our comment policy.
Please preview your comment.

blogcritics lists for Feb 13, 2012

fresh articles Most recent articles site-wide

fresh comments Most recent comments site-wide

most comments Most comments in 24hrs

top writers Most prolific Blogcritics for January

top commenters Most prolific Commenters in 24 hrs