Year of the Rabbit
is the new project from
Ken Andrews
, the perennial Los Angeles hangabout who in the past was responsible for a host of knob-twiddling jobs (
A Perfect Circle
,
Jimmy Eat World
, etc.), as well as
Failure
On
, and the cheeky 1996 cover band experiment
Replicants
.
YOTR
's eponymous debut finds
Andrews
revisiting the
post-grunge
lurch of his
material, albeit with a newly honed
pop
twinge that masks the fact that he still sounds a whole lot like
Kurt Cobain
"Rabbit Hole"
opens the festivities, re-introducing the dully processed guitar sound that permeated
's 1994 effort,
Magnified
. But where that album played up jagged histrionics,
lets its hooks unfold more slowly, as on the spidery chug of
"Lie Down"
or
"Vaporize,"
which sounds like something
Johnny Rzeznik
might write if he were angrier and had a fetish for
Garbage
-style
alt.rock
. Elsewhere, the formulaic lyrics and pacing of
"Strange Eyes"
are saved by some cool drum programming and an insistently twisting lead guitar line, while
"Absent Stars"
is an amped-up run through vintage Alternative Nation riffing. But while these sounds offer a few enjoyable highs, the majority of
just doesn't make much of a dent. Tracks like
"Hunted"
"Last Defense"
-- even the acoustic and strings departure of
"Hold Me Up"
-- are well-crafted nuggets of modern
alternative pop
. But there isn't enough of a real band inside these shells of songs, and you just get the impression that this sort of thing is pretty easy for these guys to crank out. Vaguely acerbic lyrics, obliquely fashionable references to drug use, articulated sweeps of anthemic guitar, and choruses you sing along with because you realize you've heard it all before -- this is what you'll find down
's rabbit hole. ~ Johnny Loftus