The Alpine
On feel trips
Supersonic Records/Sony/BMG
The Alpine sort of remind me of a sub-par version of Blur circa "The Great Escape" in that they play this sort of tongue-in-cheek pop with slick, harmonized vocals – the lead singer's bratty sneer is featured prominently all over the album and is at times, a little grating. Unfortunately, the singer's voice is not the only thing that's grating: the songs themselves are just sort of generic and uninspired which makes for a pretty shaky foundation for the band's somewhat overbearing delivery (I'm mostly referring to the dueling boy/girl vocals and liberal use of silly keyboard settings). My aversion to this album probably has much to do with the cringe-worthy lyrics (for example: "Life is so ironic/it's never what it seems" and "Mom and Dad/got pissed real bad/the day I joined the band"). If you're the kind of person that is easily turned off by bad lyrical content, avoid this album altogether. It's not to say there aren't any high points at all: "Trigger" stands out as one of the few gems in the sense that I could imagine it penetrating Top 40 radio, but I cannot conclusively say that I enjoyed this album.
- Jessica Numsuwankijkul