'Dead Media' suffers from the same lackluster,drippy songwriting as its predecessor. Frontman Darren Hayman includeson the inner sleeve an extensively detailed list of all the equipmentthe band used on the album, and you'd think with the pride they take intheir capable equipment, they'd at least be able to pull off somedecent songs. All those well-documented vintage analog synths only endup sounding awkward, out of place and handled in an amateur manner. Infairness, the band does some interesting things electronically, and totheir credit, seem to be making a sincere attempt to move in a newdirection and avoid lapsing into hashing out the same type of materialover and over again. But songs like "Trouble Kid", which is sounbelievably banal lyrically (yet somehow oddly catchy musically,despite a frightening hard rock guitar riff) I find it shocking thatthis comes from the same man who wrote "A Hymn to the Postal Service"(although Hayman himself admits on the band's website in regards to thesong: "This is pretty shameless"). Did I actually hear: "I'm gonnasquash him flat like a bug / With my new Timberlands" or am I trappedin some warped parallel universe?? "Peppermint Taste" and "Half a Life"are equally awful, but without a redeeming pop hook. The band'senthusiasm for their new sound is evident, and thus it makes it evenmore difficult to write such a negative review, but unfortunately, inthis case there seems to something to be said for sticking to somethingthat works well. -
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