ALBUM REVIEW: Carnival Seasons - "The Town"

   Carnival Seasons is a rock band from Southern California that labels themselves "alternative" although all the songs are extremely radio-polished and contain many corporate-rock tropes from the last 10 to 15 years. They seem like alright musicians, especially lead guitarist Danathan Nguyen who has satisfying if somewhat unoriginal solos strewn throughout the release, but the type of 'good musicians' that are probably versed solely in mainstream rock music to the point of being almost entirely reliant on well-established models for songwriting and presentation.
   The vocalist has a fairly strong voice for what he does, but unfortunately his style of singing is pretty much exactly what I do not like in a rock singer. He has a bit of gravel to his delivery that at best reminds one of Rod Stewart or the guy from Stereophonics, but at worst brings to mind Rob Thomas or the guy from Fuel in the post-Pearl Jam drawl that I thought died off a decade ago, mixed in with some of the annoying quasi-RnB bending of syllables that modern radio bands like Neon Trees or even Maroon 5 sometimes do. The similarity to the guy from Fuel was especially apparent in the song "When Are You Coming Back" which had a chorus of "stayeeee with mayeeee" and similar unnecessary extensions of words. The following track "Untrained Actions" has a bevy of "oooh-whoaa-whooaaa" stuff going on like arena-lite-rock popular right now. Kings Of Leon. Mumford And Sons gone electric. Imagine Dragons with less electronics. Shit like that. It's really not my style but alot of people seem to like this kind of singing and its not like the guy is off key or anything. It's just not my bag at all.
   
   Musically, all the songs are fairly well-constructed and played but so generic that they feel recycled. The second song, "Rolling Out Tonight," starts with jangly, over-reverbed guitars that are impossible to hear without thinking of 80's U2 or one of Angels & Airwaves many interchangeable songs, a feature that's played out to even more obvious extents in the album closer "We Are One." Meanwhile, "Lazy," while being perhaps my favorite song on the entire album, borrows a Green Day riff and takes out any semblance of snottiness.
   Maybe the main thing that fundamentally turns me off from bands like this is the forced sense that this is "important music." The delivery has all the saccharine hopefulness and wonder-of-the-world bullshit that plagues many modern rock bands into seeming like cheesy rewrites of "Do You Realize?" They're like one of those bands who has a single hit on KROQ and gets to be the token 'really earnest kinda-indie band' on the annual Weenie Roast lineup.
  
   If you like the stuff I've listed above then give this band a listen I guess, but all in all, I personally can't recommend this album. As I've clearly indicated, this just isn't in the vein of what I like at all. The two tracks that were the most okay, "Lazy" and "Not In Control," still sounded like faceless entries into a 90's comedy soundtrack or suited to be played during a scene transition in "The Real World."
   No teeth.


  http://carnivalseasons.bandcamp.com/