March 3rd, 2008

HelloGoodbye - “Zombies! Aliens! Vampires! Dinosaurs! And More!” (reissue) review

By Sarah Lerner

3 Stars(out of 5)

California indie-poppers Hellogoodbye have re-released its full-length debut, “Zombies! Aliens! Vampires! Dinosaurs! And More!” with fourteen unreleased bonus tracks and a live DVD. This upgrade is only really exciting to die-hard fans of the band, as the unreleased tracks are simply demo versions of the album’s weaker songs.

Hellogoodbye’s lyrics are not much better than the poems scribbled by countless teenagers in their high-school notebooks. But if this lack of depth doesn’t bother you, Hellogoodbye are a relatively good pop band. “All of Your Love,” the first song of the album, sounds like a beginner’s course in well-written electronic music. Its lovey-dovey lyrics are backed by a throbbing, catchy beat. The two sweeter love songs, “Oh, It’s Love” and “Baby, It’s a Fact,” are admittedly just as cheesy as the rest, but somehow manage a gentle sincerity of which pop-crooners like Maroon 5 could only dream.

Unfortunately, the album goes downhill from there. Hellogoodbye submits to the kind of whiny pop-rock that easily fits into Drive-Thru Records’ catalog. While the few good songs make Hellogoodbye a band to watch, the whole package is probably not worth its price.

This entry was posted on Monday, March 3rd, 2008 at 11:13 pm and is filed under Arts, Music. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.

You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.