Artist The Classic Crime
Album Albatross
Released 2006
Seattle rock quartet the Classic Crime first met in high school and played together in a band called Orizon. After touring with labelmates Anberlin and Emery in early 2006, they released their debut album, Albatross.
As the last 60 seconds of emo’s death knell dwindle down, there are still hundreds of hungry next-big-things stumbling out of the woodwork with their stained hearts pinned to the sleeves of their youth medium T-shirts. The Classic Crime isn’t the worst of the lot; in fact, disc opener “The Fight” is a reliably decent bit of pop-punk that swims in the genre without getting sucked under. But, either to their credit or their detriment, TCC usually settles into a middling groove that’s more reminiscent of the four shitty songs on each Jimmy Eat World record than anything in the emo spectrum, limited as it may be.
The most obvious twig on Albatross’s family tree is actually Panic! At The Disco, whose currently-everywhere singles are needlessly re-imagined on “The Coldest Heart” (one Panic! is fourteen too many, thank you). Strangely, the better material on Albatross actually sounds like Switchfoot, themselves no strangers to borrowing material. “Who Needs Air” is a much-improved rendering of “Dare You To Move,” yet also kind of blows since it’s a rendering of “Dare You To Move.”
Such is the duality throughout Albatross, an occasionally engaging, but ultimately faceless, entry into a crowded genre desperately in need of an end to the misery that is so crucial as its selling point. At times, you may find yourself nodding along with a pensive half-smile as you realize, “this isn’t that bad.” But, not that bad just isn’t enough to justify yet another tedious exercise in middle-of-the-road half-rock.
Give TCC points for focusing their energy on tuneful songwriting instead of 16-word song titles, but save the real praise until they decide to write songs that sound like them, not everyone else. No, this isn’t a crime, but it’s far from classic.
- By TAYLOR KINGSBURY
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