Post your comments about Rob Walker
(reviewed by Robert Grazer)
This album offers nothing new, but it's still a heck of a good listen.Not too derivative, not too generic (though admittedly a lot of the songs on this album are), but not too original either. After the disaster created by Wish For Eden, Rob Walker decided to reform the band under his own name, and release Strobe, and yeah, this was about how long the band lasted. Ah, who cares about that? Let's hit some of the songs on this sucker... right after I tell you that using a Star Wars theme for the album cover was not a bad idea at all. In fact, I think it turned out very good. I put a picture of it up at http://www.geocities.com/xeernoflax/strobe.jpg so you can see it. How nice of me. And the track listing on the back (which I don't have a picture of) is written moving backwards like the background story stuff in the actual movies. Neato.
Anyway we have ten little songs on here, and all but three ("Down" is way too generic, "I Stand Alone" is boring, and "Look at Myself"is far too simple, though still kind of nice) are really cool. We start it out with Rob singing "And do you see me when I cry and can you heal this pain I hide and do you know (know) that I'm a broken man" then those drums pound us into "Dream," the first song. Yep, you might have thought that an album which is pretty much a grunge record wouldn't work well after the grunge invasion, but Strobe rules. Oh and Rob's voice is kinda like a grungy Bob Dylan. Just kinda. It's cool though. Anyway back to the actual music. It may or may not be grunge, but if it is I can tell you that it's ten times as melodic as any Nirvana I've heard. The chorus of "Dream" is beautiful, with Rob sounding nothing like Dylan. And the guitar solo is almost just a reworking of the verses (like "Teen Spirit"), but it does add a couple of new things to the song, thus saving it from being a piece of crap.
Second track is "So Far Away," another melodic rocker, with cool drum work. Yeah, the drummer's got about squat worth of talent, but some of the stuff he does is cool, and I like it. My favorite is the ballad "Scared Little Man" which is a powerful little tune with more drum heavy grungy guitars and another melodic chorus. Hell yeah! Great song. "Push" is a bit of a more typical grunge rocker, yet it's still a good song, and "Grow" absolutely rules! Hmm, maybe that one's the best on the album. If you were to ever hear it you'd like it. I guarantee. Maybe if you see this in a used bin somewhere, since I think it's out of print. Get it if you see it. Only if you see it cheap, though, because chances are you won't like it as much as I do.
After some other dumb songs ("I Stand Alone" and "Down") , we have a song with dumb lyrics. But the music kicks, in a slow grungy kind of way. And closing is another kickass rocker called "Life" (amounting to a grand total of 6 out of ten song titles being only one word. Think that's impressive? Check out Bride's Scarecrow Messiah where they got desperate and called a song "Dadmom" just so the title were all one word.) which is built around a heavy and cool riff, that I could listen to forever. Actually I hardly ever listen to this album anymore. I don't know why. But whenever I do pull it out it proves itself to be a worthwhile (though somewhat short) listening experience.
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