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Sick Of It All - Based On A True Story review




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Reviewer:
4.4

33 users:
7.3
Band: Sick Of It All
Album: Based On A True Story
Release date: April 2010


01. Death Or Jail
02. The Divide
03. Dominated
04. A Month Of Sundays
05. Braveheart
06. Bent Outta Shape
07. Lowest Common Denominator
08. Good Cop
09. Lifeline
10. Watch It Burn
11. Waiting For The Day
12. Long As She's Standing
13. Nobody Rules
14. Dirty Money

Well it seems my sister got into my iTunes again...

Not good.

She's this Rise Against-loving, Anti-Flag-worshiping punk listener and I was expecting to see my library taken over by similar artists. However, of the several bands she downloaded, one name stuck out: Sick Of It All. Having come across the profile before on Metal Storm, I remembered reading they played "New York Hardcore". I had never heard of this style before, so I decided to give this album a chance.

Big mistake.

The first song I listened to, I thought... hey, this is all right, better than what my sister usually listens too. The next song, I thought... hey, this is pretty good! I might actually enjoy the album. But by the third song I had lost all interest. The three songs I just listened to were exactly the same. They were simple songs - simple, boring songs. As I listened to the rest of the 14 songs I was amazed at how all the songs managed to sound the exact same; they were identical.

In addition to the repetitive songs, the vocals are totally off-putting. Not only are they repetitive, they're also quite scratchy... and rather annoying. And the lyrics are extraordinarily cheesy, focusing entirely on the theme of New York. Now I know lots of bands have themes or styles, and some of them are really enjoyable. Then again, some are just plain laughable. Honestly? These guys fall under the laughable category.

Believe it or not, all isn't lost on this release. One good thing is the guitar: some nice riffs, fairly well-written, and even performed adequately. That is until they use that same riff again 12 more times throughout the rest of the album. In general, the music is simple, with little or no variation, and if there was some sort of change at any point, it would have made a big difference in the overall quality.

But there is no change or variation. Thus, this album is bad... very bad. I do not recommend it at all.

There are no highlights on this album.


Rating breakdown
Performance: 7
Songwriting: 3
Originality: 7
Production: 7

Written by Boxcar Willy | 15.01.2012




Guest review disclaimer:
This is a guest review, which means it does not necessarily represent the point of view of the MS Staff.


Comments

Comments: 1   Visited by: 54 users
15.01.2012 - 16:45
3rdWorld
China was a neat
Exactly describes what fuckface faces when putting on a bad album...
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