By John Bedard
Back when the talent shows like ‘Britain’s Got Talent’ or ‘American Idol’ were still new and people were hoping that they would change the way new stars broke into the industry or infuse some new styles into the radio playlists, there would be a lot of great talent and we would all vote for our favourites and at the end, they would all go off with the promise of making a full album. It finally would come out and it would just be yet another generic pop album with only a hint of what they were back when you voted for them. I don’t know if Double Experience was ever on one of those talent shows but ‘Alignments’ is that generic pop album that always resulted. Sure, I can hear that they have talent and that they probably would have been great covering other people’s music, but, honestly, the originals that ended up on the album just seem uninspired.
There was an attempt to have a rather unique element with the whole alignments theme having tracks to represent good, evil, and neutral but I feel like this was not at all capitalized on. There is no obvious through-line to tie them all together. It does not seem like there is any learning from track to track just that each song is what it is just for the sake of it. I think that is most evident with the last track ‘Alignments’ where they are asking the listener to imagine a world where they are the hero and where do they line up. This would have been so much more powerful if the album started with evil then moved to neutral then to good. Especially if every track had something to connect them but instead each track is totally disconnected from the rest. The tracks also seem so petty. Most of the evil and neutral tracks don’t seem like they are on anything all that important especially when compared to the good tracks.
The good tracks, on the other hand, to touch on some bigger things but is presented rather condescendingly about topics that require more nuance to fully understand. If you are going to go that way and try to cover touchy topics that is great but then you actually need to dive into it. Instead, they dismiss the people that disagree or have other ideas as evil simply by labeling the track as good. On top of that, no solution is presented. ‘Something’s Got To Give’ is probably the best example of this. If you are going to tackle gun laws in the US there is a lot more than just more laws, video games and the NRA are bad, and thoughts and prayers do nothing. All of these things could have very valid discussions but they never go there. Just dismiss. It is a major missed opportunity that could have been really cool.
Touching on vocals and music for a second. They are fine. You can tell they have a lot of talent but there never seemed to be much passion. The delivery seems stale, almost like they were just trying to get through a day at work and did not really want to be there. Combine that with the uninspired and repetitive lyrics and I would definitely skip this album. I hope I never have to hear ‘My List’ again. Justin Bieber’s ‘Baby’ is less repetitive and annoying – and that is saying something…
- ‘Alignments’ is released on 24 April. You can get your copy HERE.
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