(+44)
When Your Heart Stops Beating
CD (Interscope)
Reviewed by Anthony
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When Mark Hoppus first started talking about his new project, +44, he was repeatedly labeling his own music and built up false hype for a band that seemingly had yet to write any full songs or lay down any music. Fortunately between that time and when +44 actually had some music ready for their built in post-Blink 182 fan base, Mark Hoppus realized he could just continue doing what he and Travis Barker did best, writing a strong pop-punk record that is just progressive enough to set itself a part from the pack. You’ve got to take these bands for what they are, entertainment, built for the masses. Not to take away from the fact that Mark is a talented person, as a musician, writer and as a producer, but he’s trying to make a living and maybe his original vision was too far from what the mainstream media was willing to push. I do feel like +44 have set themselves apart from Blink 182 enough to make the new band worth while, adding a lot of diversity, sync, keyboards, etc. The biggest differences are that the majority of vocals are done exclusively by Mark, who has a nice poppy voice but doesn’t convey emotion as well as Tom Delonge did. Looking back their voices did pair up extremely well. Travis’ drumming as usual is one of the biggest assets to any project he is in, which is evident on both the hard hitting pop-punk songs (“When Your Heart Stops Beating”) and the building ballads (“Little Death”). I’m really enjoying this record right now, I’d like to give it a better rating, but knowing the life span of pop-punk records, I doubt people will care much in 4 months let alone 4 years. If they do prove me wrong, that’s great.
(+44)
Interscope |
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