Cue the Doves--Architectures for the Atmosphere

It starts out with high hopes. "Majestic Twelve" is a vibrant instrumental that says Cue the Doves isn’t your run-of-the-mill pop-punk outfit. Well, "Majestic Twelve" is lying. No sooner are we thirty seconds into the second track, "Sphere of the Abyss," then images of current pop-punk pieces coming floating to mind. The Academy Is..., Brand New, Lucky Boys Confusion , even Panic! at the Disco can all be found here much more than the band’s listed influences of Nine Inch Nails and Deftones. "An Astronomer’s Eclipse" hardly sounds original, the band’s standard instrumentals and mainstream vocals do little to put them ahead of the crowd. For a band that proudly advertises their non-emotional vocals (citing Ray Bradbury and sci-fi as major lyrical influences), they may score more points after looking to their unimaginative instrumentals. Song after song shed little light on anything unique from Cue the Doves, and worse than that the album is just plain boring. "The Balance" in particular is repetitive and by the time they add in immature screamo they’ve lost the listener. Perhaps one must be in the targeted age range (they cite their 12,000 MySpace friends as a major selling point), but nothing seems to set Cue the Doves apart from an vastly overdone category. A good choice for anyone who doesn’t mind their major post-punk groups being ripped-off, everyone else should stay clear.

(Published at MusicEmissions.com)