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Verona Grove

The Story Thought Over

Written by: PP on 26/10/2007 01:51:17

During a time when most pop punk bands are taking a revivalist approach to the genre, bringing back the hardcore elements of the early to mid 90s, Verona Grove's debut "The Story Thought Over" arrives far too late to stir up any interest for it, hence the lack of reviews available for it across the web. Instead of following what's trendy right now, Verona Grove has opted to go for what was trendy about a year or two ago, with predictably miserably results.

The album is filled with sugarcoated pop melodies fitted into the high school pop punk mold, with far too little focus on the punk part of the genre. The choruses are moderately catchy, with cheesy topics ranging from lost girlfriends to being a 30 year old rock star wondering what happened to high school. Frankly, it's just not convincing at all, because New Found Glory did all of this about a decade ago without sounding as over dramatic and generic.

Aside from "I Haven't Got Much (But I'm Getting Somewhere)", the songs on the record sound identical and completely lack a sense of identity. As I'm listening through songs like "Everything You Dreamed" or "Smalltown Celebrity" I'm constantly thinking about Simple Plan's debut album, because essentially that's where "The Story Thought Over" is copying from. It's plagued by the same problems, the same lack of credibility as Simple Plan's debut. Luckily, the Canadians were smart enough to fix those problems for their much better sophomore album in 2004 - lets hope Verona Grove follows in their footsteps now that they have started.

Download: Smalltown Celebrity, I Haven't Got Much (But I'm Going Somewhere)
For the fans of: Simple Plan
Listen: Myspace

Release date 21.08.2007
Republic