"Your alienated little brother and his trenchcoat mafia friends might like the Middle World vibe…"

 

C Average ~ Second Reckoning
(Kill Rock Stars)

C Average declares that their new release, Second Reckoning, is not heavy metal, it’s hard rock. It’s actually hard RAWK, with classic arena-vibrating fullness, whangy guitar noodling, and dramatic multi-octave minor-key power chords.

But Second Reckoning is not pure bong-passing party rock. It sounds like ananchronistic accompaniment for neo-medieval jousts from Ladyhawke or A Knight’s Tale. The song "Egrane" is, in fact, "from the film Excalibur." Celtic cover art and songs like "Starhok" and "The Witch" evoke Dungeons and Dragons marathons from your youth. Unfortunately, a theme meant to shape an album can weigh it down instead. Your alienated little brother and his trenchcoat mafia friends might like the Middle World vibe, but the rest of us are over it by now. If C Average aren’t truly sincere about all this, they're not joking quite hard enough.

The dynamics, licks, and melodies are more complex than your usual hard rock plodding, but each song has the same complexity, and the same general tone. The resulting Rush-style epic bravado grows tiresome before you even get to the five part ending opus "Prolock (the Protector)."

An apparent prank call from "the chaotic elf" at the beginning of one track indicates at least some humor in the knights and dragons theme. More explicit satire might have prevented the initially promising CD from oozing down into the "perpetual saga" aptly referenced in the fifth and final phase of "Prolock." Or, C Average could dump the SCA pose entirely and concentrate on the innovative hard rock that they do really well. Then we could enjoy their testosterone-flooded, fist-pumping sound without having to think about hobbits at all. –Holly Tedford

 

1 • 2 • 3 • 4 • 5 • 6