On With Love And Squalor, Brooklyn-based trio We Are Scientists seem torn between languishing in the indie ghetto and morphing into Green Day/Blink 182-style MTV-punk-poppers.
On the surface, the Scientists’ music seems tailored for the mass market. They play tight, energetic rock music, with plenty of gothic touches, and liberal helpings of Cobain angst. Look deeper, though, and certain shortcomings seem to hold them back.
The band’s principle weakness is a lack of hooks, melodies and choruses – play With Love And Squalor several times back-to-back and you will still struggle to find anything to hum along to.
This is not to say that their music is devoid of merit though. While they lack the pop skills to become stadium beasts, We Are Scientists do offer more sonic delights. They can build furiously enjoyable storms of sound; full of bleary Sonic Youth riffage and pounding bass – and even incorporating a jerky, new wave sensibility on occasion.
The finest moments on With Love And Squalor come when the Scientists either show greater restraint, or do away with it altogether – particularly when ‘Can’t Lose’s gorgeously harmonic mid-section is sharply counterpointed by the unhinged metal thrash of ‘Callbacks’.
The album spends too much time between these two extremes though. The lack of emotional range starts to grate after repeated plays, as do singer Keith Murray’s grey, charmless vocals. There hasn’t exactly been a shortage of sensitive-yet-angry young rockers in recent times, and We Are Scientists don’t quite have the personality or sense of adventure to make the formula fresh.
Definitely not an F minus then, but these scientists need to try a few more experiments.