The Front Bottoms is a band I would like to enjoy a bunch. They have some fantastic musical talent and bring the rock genre back to its acoustic guitar roots. Unfortunately the same cannot be said about their singing ability. As a result, their self-titled album suffers greatly and fails to reach its true potential.

Lead singer Brian Sella yells rather than sings the lyrics to the majority of the tracks. The vocals sound stressed and are far from music to your ears. Another thing that detracts from the music is the layering of the vocals. Apparently The Front Bottoms like to have many vocal tracks play at the same time, causing a chaos of sound that is anything but pleasant. The worst perpetrator of this is “Flashlight,” the first song on the album. Not a strong start for the band I must say.

The thing about The Front Bottoms is that the album never truly creates something magical. Sometimes the music will be off; most of the time the vocals will be off. Rarely do the two ever match with each other and create a great song. There are a few good ones but ultimately the album doesn’t quite fit together all that well.

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