The Higher, a group of five young twenty-somethings from the same Vegas hometown as The Killers and Panic! at the Disco, are an inexplicably confident bunch.
They have just five years and two EPs under their belt and hold the graveyard 7 o'clock shift on their label's promotional tour. Their debut CD On Fire boasts no hit singles, and their official website consists of one highly stylized press photo and a link to the band's MySpace page. Despite these early signs of obscurity, The Higher are sure, in fact, absolutely positive, that they will become America's next music sensation.
Guitarist Tom Oakes is excited for listeners to hear On Fire, a collection of twelve songs compiled from the band's previous EPs, 2005's Histrionics and 2006's Pace Yourself.
"We've just been pumping our little hearts and minds to make the most fabulous record we could ever make," Oakes said, before shouting the praises of the band's long-haired, spindly lead singer Seth Trotter, in promotional material about the release. "[His] voice is phenomenal … wow, does it show on this record!"
If Oakes' confidence sounds like a thinly veiled attempt to convince himself of his band's capabilities, it's probably because he's heard On Fire and knows they're in trouble. The album, despite its urgent promotion and polished image, is a completely unremarkable accomplishment, and the band seems destined to fall through the cracks of the overpopulated emo scene. Even worse, their unfounded brashness implies nobody told the poor kids that emo is the new teen pop, a genre swarming with falseness as it fades into a laughable land of has-beens and tired clichés.
It's unfortunate that The Higher hopped on the emo bandwagon so late because with a little more effort and a few less pairs of girls' pants, the band could have actually been a decent act. Vocalist Trotter, a hybrid of Cartel's Will Pugh and The Academy Is' William Beckett, has a delicious, if not "phenomenal," singing voice that seems greatly underused throughout On Fire. The album's simplistic songs fail to showcase the singer, who sounds as if he could sing circles around many of his counterparts.
Trotter's potential, however, just isn't enough to pull the album out of its frustrating sameness. The hooks come few and far between, relegating most of the album to an annoying drone of whines and power chords. Some tracks veer toward R&B, like upbeat first single "Rock My Body," while others, like the lazy "Movement," are straight watered-down pop. Even with the production help of Fall Out Boy's Patrick Stump, who currently holds the title of music's "It factor" king, most of On Fire's tracks fall flat with a tremendous thud. Somewhere between the album's glossy beats and sugary melodies, in fact, one could actually swear it belonged to a boy band.
Lack of melodic creativity isn't the only thing hurting The Higher's attempts at success. On Fire isn't deep stuff — most of the lyrical content revolves around partying, getting ready to party, getting girls to party and then hating girls because they party too much. "Insurance?" boasts the profound lines: "All that matters to me girl/ win or lose/ is an X-rated complete swirl of you and me" and "Let's burn this filthy town to the ground/ With our dirty looks and glances." Just as enlightening is "Can Anyone Really Love Young," which finds Trotter lamenting that he can't stay the night at a girl's house because she "doesn't want to offend someone [she] dated."
The gimmicky purpose of On Fire seems to be to provide a soundtrack for the adolescent set, a generation surviving on boozed-up weekends and dramatic self-absorption. Half of the record's lyrics wouldn't look out of place abbreviated into text messages sent out drunkenly to potential hook-ups at bar time. The other half seems lifted out of a histrionic journal entry when said hook-ups don't go quite as planned.
The shallowness of the record's lyrical content is perfectly fine, except The Higher deliver it without a hint of irony. Unlike other bands that have begun to realize songs with long titles about cheating girlfriends are the musical equivalent of guyliner and black nail polish, The Higher steadfastly embraces their triteness.
The band seems to honestly believe that trendiness will turn everybody on, which instead turns listeners immediately off. Unaware of this, they continue to wallow and spin their way through On Fire, an effort that seems desperate considering the band's upcoming and inevitable demise. At least they're going down with confidence.
GRADE: 1 out of 5
