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Demo Review
to my boy The Grid / Mono
Article written by
Mary B - Jan 21, 2007
I'm a bit of an electro head so it was with great eagerness that I placed the 'to my boy' cd in to my awaiting player. Great packaging - check. Good name - check. Great music - not sure. Oh dear, it's all a bit disappointing really. 'Is it evil or is it beautiful?' the press release asks me. Er, well neither really. Is it something that you've heard a million times before? I ask myself. Yes. After countless listens, desperate to like it because my first impressions insisted that I did, the best I can come up with is 'The Cure meets Kraftwerk for a cup of tea and realise that they can't really be bothered with the 21st century.' It's not that the song The Grid is bad. It goes through the musical motions. It's powerpop/electronica paint by numbers. And as the '2 piece futurist pop made with guitar and computer' (as it states on their website) band, strum and tap their way through the 'just shy of 3 minutes' track I find myself not caring if it ends or not. It's an 'ok' song but when you're faced with a demo mountain, 'ok' will not do. The lyrics say to me 'I'd like it if you were happy.' Well I'm not. It will not visit my player again anytime in the near future.
The other song Mono is simply awful, awful, awful. Where The Grid has some very well hidden good intentions, this song is Pacman for the musical masses. I seriously do not get where this song is supposed to be going. If someone can enlighten me, please do. It's simply annoying. It hurts to listen to it. It's as irritating as a child playing with a noisy toy but not as entertaining. The thing is if they cut out the Pacman soundtrack (listen to it and you'll understand what I mean) it could be salvaged, just. Am I being too harsh? Perhaps. My first impressions of 'to my boy' gave me a false sense of musical security. The opening line of this cd is 'Detach anchors from the frame'. I'm going to detach myself from 'to my boy' musical offerings instead if that's all right with you...