Independent Student Newspaper Since 1969

The Badger Herald

Independent Student Newspaper Since 1969

The Badger Herald

Independent Student Newspaper Since 1969

The Badger Herald

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Rough seas for Maritime’s debut endeavor

Although the recent popularization of independent and underground music has seen the rise of several creative and interesting artists, it has also paved the way for the arrival of an abundance of similar sounding bands. We, the Vehicles is hardly an original piece of work, but it would be unnecessary to go as far as accusing Maritime, the three man band that includes former members of the Promise Ring and the Dismemberment Plan, of being knock-offs. The problem with the album is not so much that this has already been done before, though it surely has, but rather that the sound is one of such anonymity that they could not belittle a soul.

Perhaps the problem with many indie pop bands is that they fail to meet the simplicity of pop with enough creative harmonies, falling into an easy-listening-like sound that could not even offend your mom. We, the vehicles is perhaps not easy-listening in the true sense of the label — there are in fact some upbeat songs — but the record does come off as calm, which, suitably enough, is also the title of the opening track. It makes for nice coffee shop background music to sip your latte to, but nothing more.

The album opens with a chord sequence that perhaps sets the standard a little too high for the rest of the CD as the strings seldom return to this form but remain stuck in a somewhat shrill, periodically plinky plonky, sound. The appearance of acoustic guitars only increases the wimpy feel of the record. As far as the percussion goes, it does not get much better. After the initial beats of a typical song on the album the drums are drowned out by strings and vocals, not in terms of salience, the drums are still there, but they are so monotonous that they don't seem to play any musical part more significant than a metronome for the band. Occasionally the drums do surface to a greater extent like on the track "Twins," where bass drumming livens up the song, making it one of the more interesting ones on the album. On the whole, though, the percussion remains musically uneventful.

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The music in itself would probably be less dull had singer Davey von Bohlen provided his lyrics with a contextual meaning that was available for comprehension, or at least interpretation, to anyone other than himself. Instead the song titles are a blurred mix of bizarre and cliché. The few poetic moments that do appear seem more like a collection of images than a complete piece of art and venture into some rather dry rhyming which increases the feeling of unrelated words lumped together to sound pretty. The opening track, for example, has the lines "Shortened by the blasphemy / when the sun would warm the sea / and the culinary islands are chasing me / we are powerful despite our injuries". This may sound sweet, but it is hard to derive meaning from the words.

The lack of lyrical creativity is further manifested in a painstaking repetitiveness, which can only find its counterpart in mainstream factory produced pop. Von Bohlen is not shy to throw in a few "na-na-na"s when needed and successfully fits six syllables into a two-syllable word like "al-o-o-o-o-one". In the name of repetition (perhaps a short-cut to leaving a memorable impression of an otherwise ordinary album), the track "Don't Say You Don't" opens with what sounds like another teenage pop cliché "Don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't say you don't love me / my beat, beat, beat, beat, beat, beat beating heart could stop". Delivering these lines without losing a bit of respect requires a certain amount of authority. Von Bohlen's boyish, though somewhat whiny voice, certainly lacks the presence or stamina to pull this off without sounding like a love-sick teenage poet. At best, he is reminiscent of an upbeat Nick Drake, but the amateurish lyrics fail to provide intrigue to already simple song structures.

Maritime delivers uneventful indie pop in a conventional passive manner that fails to experiment musically. In the end, We, the Vehicles falls due to its lack of creativity and overhanging simplicity. There is nothing outright awful about the band's sound, but nothing impressive either. Though there surely are a few people who would enjoy this, Maritime at their current ability come across too anonymously to reach a larger fan base in an already overcrowded independent scene.

RATING: 2

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