Whitest Boy Alive - Rules
The Whitest Boy Alive hit us with a brand new album “Rules” with shots of minimalist arty pop from Erlend Øye and co. Unfortunately, each song seems to come and go with a blur and without a second thought. Unfortunately, the album fits in nicely as nothing more than background noise with a failure to grab you.
Filtering through, you get patches of funk and recurring riffs that, every once in a while, make you tap your foot and take notice, but the latter is less of a occurrence. “Keep a Secret” is bass led until a background synth and chance chords battle through. “Intentions” is bouncy and, if thought about, makes for a good nod of the head. “Courage” possess’ more energy and sweats more effort but seems all too predictable by this time. “Timebomb” resembles a bedroom jam to themselves and amounts to nothing more.
“Rollercoaster Ride” slows the tempo down into a melodic love song with simple edgy guitar lines in the style of The Whitest Boy Alive and if doubled in length you could foresee it going somewhere but instead it bumps into “High On The Heels” leaving it to please the ear. Beginning like a 90’s cheese dance anthem and actually makes you want to dance and is the first song that seems to provoke any natural reaction. “1517” spins in like a long lost cousin of Daft Punk, but somehow they never met and it ends before it has the chance to grab you.
“Gravity” blends with the rest of “Rules” like beige to the desert and gives no case to stand out at all despite the odd lyrical wonder and chiming guitar. “Promise Less Or Do More” jumps in like the older brother of Shitdisco but peters out to nothing more than unwarranted funk. “Dead End” in the verses’ actually gets you excited and everything fits into place. “Dead End” fuses “Rules’” normal fusion of bass and flickering guitar but adds dirty guitars to the mix along with a voice to die for from Erlend Øye showing how close the rest of the album is to doing something. It doesn’t overstay it’s welcome either and then announces “Islands” nicely. “Dead End” and “Islands” are what you hoped “Rules” would sound like, with “Islands” gearing itself to be a indie dance floor hit if given the chance. It bounces, it floats and gives you no reason not get up and dance, but it‘s too late.
But unfortunately “Rules” falls underneath “Dreams” and misses topping it by some length. It still has the odd riff and the funk fused with the minimalist sound which makes them so well loved, but many songs finish before they start and filter into nothingness. You feel a struggle to get to the end but when you do, you get a nice surprise. “Islands” is the best song on the album and the only one that has seemed to have progressed from on from “Dreams“ but even that copies “Burning“ in a riff halfway through. It‘s just a shame that you have to wait that long to feel that you got something from it. If you lined up the contents of ‘Rules’ with tracks like “Burning” and “Golden Cage” of “Dreams” you would see the gaping hole. It is worth a few listens for the odd bit of brilliance, but not much more than that.
5.5
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