Golden State reads like a script of what Hollywood thinks an up-and-coming indie rock band should be. Hailing from Los Angeles (a California band calling itself Golden State? How original), the band writes anthemic songs which make their way into television shows and movie soundtracks with the ease of Lindsay Lohan passing through rehab (or prison, take your pick). The band even has a song promoting an Apple product. It\u2019s for the iPad, the song\u2019s called \u201cLet It Touch You.\u201d<\/p>\n
I did not make that up.<\/p>\n
So I approached Division, Golden State\u2019s full-length debut album, with a bit of trepidation. Can a band built on such contrivance connect in a way which doesn\u2019t feel fake? The short answer is yes, though I couldn\u2019t help but feel the band was trying to push products while working for my affection.<\/p>\n
Paced by the vocal stylings of James Grundler (who strikes me as a top 10 singer during a season of American Idol), Division opens up with the U2-like \u201cWorld on Fire,\u201d a song of driving drums with an arpeggio guitar strum underneath. The song expands and contracts as if on cue, melodic and blatantly obvious, but not half bad. It might be used to sell hot wings.<\/p>\n
\u201cLight Speed\u201d you\u2019ve heard a million times before, a sweeping epic with more modern rock cliches than numbers in Pi \u2014 but I bet that song kills live. \u201cAll Roads Lead Home\u201d has the boys on the ballad bus, as Grundler sings \u201cI don\u2019t want to go that way\/ Surrender hope and faith again.\u201d The song chugs along ably and hits all the right climatic music moments. Coming to an Amtrak campaign near you.<\/p>\n
But it\u2019s at \u201cSink or Swim,\u201d and the subsequent songs \u201cDestroyer\u201d and \u201cThe Outsiders,\u201d where the band steps away from a selling and into a more purposeful mode. The trio of songs are varied and engaging: \u201cSink or Swim\u201d carries a Radiohead vibe, circa The Bends; \u201cDestroyer\u201d is grungy and explosive, think Muse meets the Black Angels; \u201cThe Outsiders\u201d is noisy and messy which gives it charm \u2014 the band doesn\u2019t have to always be right on note for a song to succeed. The album reverts into television show background music soon enough \u2014 if \u201cSave Me\u201d doesn\u2019t show up near the end of Grey\u2019s Anatomy, I\u2019ll be shocked.<\/p>\n
There are snippets of originality despite the banality, and as a start Golden State has potential. But the band needs to be wary of the company it keeps, because being called a sell out before you even start is no way to stage a career. Unless you want fries with that.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Golden State reads like a script of what Hollywood thinks an up-and-coming indie rock band should be. Hailing from Los Angeles (a California band calling itself Golden State? How original), the band writes anthemic songs which make their way into television shows and movie soundtracks with the ease of Lindsay Lohan passing through rehab (or […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1445,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[46],"tags":[454,455],"class_list":["post-1444","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-review","tag-division","tag-golden-state"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1444","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1444"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1444\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1446,"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1444\/revisions\/1446"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1445"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1444"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1444"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1444"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}