Rating:
Genre:
Rock
Release Date: 07/25/2006
The not-quite-a-genre-but-might-as-well-be "mall
punk" is pretty well codified at this point, at least in American terms. It's a glossed-up and friendly enough version of the kind of
bar band music that many groups purveyed in past decades, except instead of
the Rolling Stones and
Stevie Ray Vaughan as touchstones it's
Green Day circa
Dookie and maybe an
Offspring or
Pennywise CD here and there. There are just enough
AOR moves to allow for a big sound on the radio (or the streaming Internet station), and everything's rough and ready on the one hand and polished to a fine sheen on the other. And that, ultimately, is about it:
Minutes Too Far is a quartet from Oklahoma that has done all the right things and made all the right moves to get its own particular place in a niche. The band's producer worked with both
Green Day and
Santana (and as mixer with
the Descendents and
All, for a little extra
punk rock credit), they've appeared on
Warped Tour, they're on
Doghouse Records, and they've got the obligatory presence on both
MySpace and
purevolume.com. And what they do with that on
Let It Roll is, essentially, nothing. The album has its moments, of course -- any band worth its salt in this arena knows that the answer to attention lies in large part with heroic choruses, a little dramatic tension in the arrangement here and there, and a warm-enough-sounding singer fronting the band.
"Seems Like," the album's second song, delivers all these in spades quite competently, down to the dying burn of feedback at the end. But there's nothing here -- zip, zilch, nada -- that is remarkably new, remarkably interesting, remarkably anything. It is, simply, what it is, no more and no less. Is that enough? They may never have wanted to be a truly deathless band, but
Minutes Too Far really need to think whether they want to make any mark at all, or are content to simply redo the past without variation. There is nothing wrong with ambition.
~Ned Raggett, All Music Guide
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