Don Broco

Technology

Written by: PP on 23/10/2018 20:42:50

The third album "Technology" by surging UK pop/rock upstarts Don Broco is a divisive record, even more so than its predecessor "Automatic" three years ago. Essentially, it splits music fans into two groups: those, like yours truly, who can't stand the pompous confidence and look-at-me singing style of vocalist Rob Damiani, which is in stark contrast to the heartfelt and honest style of, say, Midwestern punk bands in its modern Fall Out Boy incarnation. For this group, the whole R'n'B/pop-infested expression by Don Broco is equivalent to negative testosterone: they sing like pretentious sissies and polish the shit out of their soundscape to leave behind a soulless, shallow pop record with little replay value nor interest for fans of actual rock music.

On the other side of the court, we have the music fans who don't mind pop music poisoning their rock music. For these guys and girls, every electronic effect, every pseudo-heavy riff, every infectiously catchy, sugar-coated chorus (see: "T Shirt Song") is a bewildering example of hybrid genres fueling the evolution of music as a whole. Granted, the latter part of the statement is true to an extent: Don Broco certainly are very creative with how they lace together references to Pharell Williams (see "Come Out To LA"), funky nu-metal-esque hip-hop ("Pretty"), and pop/rock passages in a seamless fashion. There's the occasional metallic riff, but the lyrical content is often laughably shallow, a problem which is only made worse by the ultra high-pitched delivery that's guaranteed to bring out the screeching teenage girls to live-shows in droves.

So that leaves a reviewer in quite the pickle: half of your audience hates the record while the other half of them are going to help skyrocket these guys to becoming UK's equivalent of Fall Out Boy in no time. Their live shows are driven by diverse crowd control techniques, and to an extent, that shows on "Technology". It's full of cheap tricks, effects, massive hooks, and instantly catchy choruses. But it also bears all the tell-tale signs of a trendy, full-of-itself release that in mere couple years' time will feel so awfully cliché you'd be embarrassed to be listening to it again. After all, how many of you are still revisiting early records by Dead By April, Attack Attack!, or Black Veil Brides? So while it's not a disaster, it's an overproduced, overpolished, over-inflated record more concentrated on trendy effects and pop elements than anything else. But for some, that's perfectly okay.

6

Download: T Shirt Song, Porkies, Everybody, Greatness
For the fans of: (new) Fall Out Boy, (new) Panic! At The Disco, Young Guns
Listen: Facebook

Release date 02.02.2018
Sharptone Records

Related Items | How we score?
Comments
comments powered by Disqus

Legal

© Copyright MMXXIV Rockfreaks.net.