Album Details

• Artist: Mutemath
• Album: Mutemath
• Label: Warner Bros
• Year of Release: 2006
• ME Rating:
• Reviewed by: symphony on 2007-07-04

What can you do? It's a vicious cycle, the world of being an unnoticed yet major label band. Honestly, Warner Bros will waste the mass amounts of cash they have advertising the hell out of Taking Back Sunday, yet ignore MuteMath for nearly a year, even though they are potentially the next big thing and an example of the arrival of indie music and the end of generic pop-punk. Who said there is no pot of gold at the end of the rainbow? That pot of gold is MuteMath.

Granted, there are missteps. Tracks like "Noticed" are good examples to be totally unnotable with lyrics such as though (I mean honestly, I've heard the same guttoral gasps of calculated sounds flushing out of numerous vocalists' delta-mouths). Regardless, missteps on debut, full length albums are to be expected. Never have I been impressed wth album as a whole due to the contribution of a single song than I was with "Break The Same." however. It quite literally acts like the very backbone of the song, tying all the ends that were experimented on with this album. Compelling drumming, trance-causing guitars, excellently timed sampling, and stellar vocal performances--it's only too bad your sister likes Fall Out Boy to experience a song as spectacular as this one.

I could ignore the other notables ("Chaos," "Typical," "Collapse") and ignore the already ignorable ("Control") but that wouldn't be fair. The notables are intense and cultivating within you--what I mean is, they don't hit you admittedly, then about four listens in, you are suddenly struck with a deep liking of the songs. The ignorable are merely ok tracks that won't cultivate and they will just make you unconciously tap your toes.

Here is where I spring a leak, however. The real kill to some songs on the album is the vocals. Paul Meany's throaty voice can be irritating at times ("Control") and stellar, like mentioned before ("Break The Same"). The attempts at a forceful yell with power was unnecessary and really damage songs ("Control") and the mellow lead-ins are boring ("Picture"). But like I said, these songs are still enjoyable--just not, extraordinarily enjoyable.

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