Point:Modern music sucks.
Counterpoint:Fuel.
At least, that's always been one of my arguments.They've always been right up there with Incubus and the Foo Fighters on the list of the top ten reasons to care about music from the post-Buggles era.
I'm sure you can understand, then, why I was so pumped about the release of their third album: "Sunburn" made for quite the promising debut, and "Something Like Human" had lesser-known tracks that could easily match even the justifiably massive hit "Hemorrhage." I hoped -- no, I KNEW -- that "Natural Selection" would complete a wonderful trilogy.
Boy, was I wrong. "Star Wars" was expanded into a Jar Jar-riffic sextet, nobody really likes to eat the vanilla part of the Neapolitan ice cream, and to this day I still don't know what the hell Mario 2 was about. It's always the youngest of the three sons who gets the girl and the chest of gold at the end of those folk tales, so maybe we should just accept "Sunburn" as the creative pinnacle and stop waiting for Fuel to live up to the standards they've created for themselves.
I should have seen it coming. In the months preceding the release, "Won't Back Down" made its way onto the "Daredevil" soundtrack and "Falls On Me" was released as the album's first single. Both were wretched in comparison to the quality we've grown to expect from these guys, but for some reason I paid it no mind.
And now?Well, let's just say that I can see why those two were chosen as the singles...and that makes me very, very sad.
The biggest thing that this album has going for it is the fact that it most definitely sounds like Fuel. They have always received the disgustingly uninformative label "Alternative Rock," so the revelation that they actually do have a distinctive sound was a delight. The best moments are those during which singer Brett Scallions lets loose a screech that's halfway between nasal and frightening while guitarist Carl Bell pounds out an intelligent riff that's just short of crushing:You're listening to Fuel, baby, and they're not going to let you forget it.
Now, that can be a majestic thing indeed, as anyone who has heard "Jesus or a Gun" or "Empty Spaces" can testify, but it was quite disappointing to find that they set the bar so much lower as far songwriting is concerned.
The best of the songs from the first two albums could be found at the magical nexus of lyrical insight and precise aural sculpting, always with the perfect chord changes to complement it all. "Natural Selection" is much more riff-driven, but not overtly so, in the White Stripes or Audioslave manner. Fuel has always been heavier than anyone gives them credit for; here, it is made much clearer than ever before as there's little else going on to take your mind off it.There's certainly no "Sunburn" or "Innocent," and I wouldn't be at all surprised to find that buried somewhere in the multimedia extras is a track consisting only of vicious, derisive laughter directed at anyone who came hoping to find anything as heartfelt as "Shimmer."
Strictly speaking, it's not all for naught. Scallions' lament on "Down Inside Of You" is as touching as Bell's six-stringed skullduggery is aggravating, and final judgments of the song at the end will hinge on how much attention you pay to each."Million Miles" alternates a forgettable Alice in Chains derivative with a cute little jackhammer of a metal chorus, but it tries to exit on a subtle note, leaving a bad taste in the mouth. Surprisingly enough, both of the singles grew on me enough over the course of exploring this album to make listening to them a marginally pleasant experience. Unfortunately, I think that was only because they stood out against the utterly vapid pap that comprises most of the other tracks.
This is one of the most painful albums I've reviewed in quite a while, because if you listen carefully, you can hear the terrified shrieks of dying rock heroism. There are worse albums that have scored higher on the omnipresent five-point scale of arbitrary symbols, but I'm taking extra points off for punitive damages. This should have been fantastic.
Verdict:I'd lose that debate. "Natural Selection" may rock, but it doesn't inspire... and from my star quarterback, I won't accept anything less.
**
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