Pop-rock can be tricky. When done right, it synthesizes elements of both pop and rock into a catchy hybrid sound, with both an aggressive edge of rock and crowd-pleasing hooks. In other cases, pop-rock bands get caught between genres, yielding a final product more watered-down than rock and not nearly as dynamic as good pop.
“It’s So Much Friendlier With Two,” the debut EP by Wisconsin pop-rock band The Millennium, is a valiant and highly listenable set of songs. That being said, it all too often struggles to nail a unique pop-rock synthesis, instead drifting troublingly toward a generic middle ground.
The Millennium formed earlier this year, promptly recording this EP. As such, their influences are clear: Taking Back Sunday, Say Anything, The Format, The Used, Good Charlotte and other mid-2000s rock/emo outfits. Unfortunately, though emulating the music of one’s idols is a great starting point for a band, it does not work as well as incorporating elements of that music into a unique sound.
This issue is consistently apparent when listening to singer Matt Hasenmueller. Hasenmueller has a terrific voice with an impressive range, but most of the time sounds like a toned-down version of any number of similar lead singers. What he needs is to find a bold style — an attitude, some aggression, something to stand out in a genre already highly saturated with terrific voices.
The same idea applies to the EP as a whole, which lays pop-style production and arrangement on top of the aforementioned influences. Synth lines, electronic manipulation of vocals and completely smoothed-over production are hallmarks of top 40 pop music, and their noticeable presence on the five-track EP can be confusing.
The song “Take Me,” for instance, includes synth-piano flourishes and moments of vocal editing which border on beat drops. The song also contains some of the EP’s slickest electric guitar riffs, but the various stylistic elements wind up feeling juxtaposed rather than smoothly blended together to yield the best of both worlds.
The lack of a cohesive musical direction can also be felt in the EP’s lyrics. Verses and pre-choruses are, on most songs, written with relatively complex figures of speech which avoid falling into clichés. Choruses are another story. Anthemic choruses don’t necessarily need to be literary masterworks, but repeating the line, “Come on, come on, come on, a little closer” several times in a row goes beyond most acceptable limits of simplicity.
If these comments seem hyper-critical, it’s because The Millennium clearly has talent and potential. The group makes use of complex harmonies and impressively technical guitar parts, but needs to find a more refined way to blend pop and rock, rather than essentially mashing elements of the two together. The Millennium clearly have work to do in terms of songwriting and arranging to find a more mature, distinct style. Nonetheless, for a first EP only six months in the making, “It’s So Much Friendlier With Two” is an entirely respectable and undeniably catchy effort.
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