Ben Weasel & his iron string quartet – “These Ones Are Bitter”
I won’t be around the bush; I have always deeply admired Ben Weasels musical accomplishments. I think that Mr. Weasel is one the most influential people in modern day punk rock, unfortunately his newest release “These Ones Are Bitter”, really disappointed me. That’s right I said it and know expect the leather clad Punk Rock Police to beat down my door and take me away and torture me with Emo.
I’m sorry, but I will not (unlike some other reviews), suck an artists dick because he is a punk rock legend. This album sounds like a made for VH1, safe for radio, major label appeal to a different fan base mp3 release. I guess as he once passionately sung, “We become what we hate”.
I have read that Ben Weasel had taken vocal lessons to get more range for his songs. Normally I guess that’s a good thing, but Ben had a great voice and actually diluted his sound by adding range. Usually I think that progression is a good thing, but in this case it ruined a good thing. Each song on this release is a mid tempo radio safe rock song. Most of the music sounds computer enhanced and has very little personality.
Believe you me, I searched for something good to say, purely out of respect for his previous work, but not one of these songs did anything for me. There is nothing “punk” sounding about any of these songs except an occasional 1-2-3-4. Lyrically the songs are well written, not his best but still better than many. That being said, there are many great lyric writers with bad music and this album falls into that realm.
