Rating:

(Warner Bros, 2006) The Vacation’s American Records debut is the same album as 2005’s Band From World War Zero, with a reordered tracklist and wider distribution, but that doesn’t mean a lot to me since I didn’t hear the original. The band’s formula is essentially hard rock in the vein of Buckcherry, with dashes of garage, punk, glam, and L.A. sleaze. That sounds a lot more exciting than it is, really. The stylized music and production on The Vacation are pretty cool, but the songwriting and tracklist just don’t work. Why does “White Noise” kick off the album when a far superior opening track would have been the hard charging “I’m No Good,” with its impressive guitar work and blasts of energy? And why close with “W.I.I.F.M.,” the weakest track on the album, when almost any other song would have worked better? In the end, though, these are minor issues with the album. Why worry about track order when there is a dearth of good songs on the album to begin with? It seems like the band is trying to get by on style over substance, but it’s just not working for them. Their style isn’t unique enough to carry them through the nine weak songs surrounding the lonely highlights of “I’m No Good” and “Liquid Lunch.” A band like The Vacation needs hooks, but they apparently haven’t learned how to write good ones yet.

 1. White Noise

 2. I’m No Good

 3. Cherry Cola

 4. Destitute Prostitues

 5. Make Up Your Mind

 6. Hollywood Fovever

 7. Trash

 8. Liquid Lunch

 9. Spiders

10. No Hard Feelings

11. W.I.I.F.M.

Buy album

– Kevin

This 1-beetreview was posted on May 9th, 2006. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.