Alrighty, so up to this point, I've mostly been all about re-capping my favourite TV shows. But tonight that's all gonna change as I introduce you to a new feature I hope to run about once a month:
Jill's CD Review.
That's right, folks. I'm not all about TV shows. I actually listen to
music once in a while.
This past month I went on a bit of a CD-buying binge - in fact, I picked up 4 CDs in one day.
The big winner from that day's puchases?
That would be the 2005 10-song disc
Extreme Behavior by a band called Hinder.
Pretty much everyone has heard the song "Lips of an Angel" on the radio in the past month or so. If you haven't, you've been living under a rock. It's a slow, romantic ballad with a bittersweet premise: the dude's whispering on the phone to his ex-girlfriend, and his new girlfriend's just in the next room, and it's so obvious that he still loves the ex and wants to be with her, but he's afraid to mess things up with the new girl. You know how it goes. It's an awesome song, as far as I'm concerned - definitely the biggest highlight of the entire album.
But there are other great songs. The only other track to garner any radio-play is "Get Stoned", a grungy sort of loser anthem. I like it, but it's not my favourite. After listening through the entire CD for the first time, my initial
favourite after "Lips of an Angel" was a song called "Homecoming Queen". It's catchy, it's up-beat; a very radio-friendly sound, all about how the popular girl in high school didn't end up being much of a success once she hit the real world.
Then there's track #6, my current favourite, which is a slow song called "Better Than Me" with the haunting refrain:
I really miss your hair in my face/ And the way your innocence tastes/ And I think you should know this/ You deserve so much better than me. I always like it when a song makes the hair on the back of my neck stand on end. It happens very rarely. "Fix You" by Coldplay, as I've mentioned in a previous Blog, did this to me. I can now add "Better Than Me" to the list. Plus, it's a really dramatic song to just belt out when I'm driving alone in the Rav.
Overall, it's one of my favourite CDs of the past year, and it firmly cemented me as a fan of Hinder. They're a band that looks like Fallout Boy but sounds more like Default. Edgy rock, a lot of anger, a lot of regret, a lot of begging for forgiveness. Lead singer Austin Winkler is all about the raw vocals that crawl in under your skin and make you think & feel. Visually, he's not so appealing - not a bad-looking dude, but his hand movements in the video for "Lips of an Angel" annoy the hell out of me. Other than that, I have no complaints. Guitar-heavy alt-rock with catchy melodies and choruses that encourage singing along. This one comes highly recommended by
me!
Pick it up if you like: Default, Nickelback, Theory of a Deadman, 3 Doors Down
Instant Hits: "Lips of an Angel", "Get Stoned"
Skip-able Tracks: "How Long", "Room 21", "Shoulda"
Jill's Picks: "By the Way", "Bliss (I Don't Wanna Know)", "Better Than Me", "Homecoming Queen"
Rating: 3.75/5
