Before even listening to Newpapers' Lakeview EP, everything about them screams, "Hate me." It could be the fact that their album cover seems to be like a bad Simpsons rip-off, featuring a lake spewing out things like an old love bus, a factory, and what one can only assume are cheap beer cans with angel wings. It could also be the fact that the band included the abbreviation EP in their title, like the listener couldn't already tell the six song EP is well, an EP. It could be that the band's promotional material includes suggestions of what songs to include on radio stations and podcasts, as if it would be so hard to break down twenty odd minutes of music and decide what to play. Maybe it's due to the band name being "Newspapers," implying that the band just looked around the room and saw the first object in sight. Unfortunately objects like microwaves, lamps, and mouse pads were overlooked. And then when it comes down to the music itself, one question arises: Newspapers, what sound are you trying to achieve?
Are you a low-fi indie rock band? Sometimes your vocals are very reminiscent of Woods, and the music is filled with your typical jangles and hooks. But then you go and have some television friendly screamy parts, somehow managing to mix the vocal styles of Bert from The Used and James Brown. Perhaps you're some kind of offshoot noise-dance band? There were obliviously a lot things going on at the soundboard during the production of the album, making sounds higher and lower for no real apparent reason. But then there's your acoustic guitar and bells, so I'm not sure if that's really it either. Newspapers may have well created their new genre of music: Clusterfuck.
The last song on the album, "Minimum Wage," is hard to wrap your head around. The transitions are so numerous and so odd that it's hard to make sense of any of it all. It's not as if Newspapers plays really dynamic or complicated music, they just throw a bunch of shit together and try to make it fit as one. The following is a review based on the musical transitions of this song:
VoLuMe Up, VoLuMe DoWn, Oh ShIt AmBiEnCe, Oh FuCk DiStOrTiOn, PlEaSe HaVe ThIs Go SoMeWhErEandnowwejustmovedintosomehappystuffwithhookswithnowarningatall. Ok so it's kind of smooth sailing, boring yet strucructdandohfuckrandomsoundclip. BaCk To SOmE vOlUmE ChAnGeS
wait
.Spoooookyyyyy soundsandnowwejustwentbacktoacousticguitarwithnobuildupatall.
As you may or may not be able to see what I was trying to convey, Newspapers does not understand buildups, climaxes, or the basic form of changing ones sound. No sense can be made of it whatsoever. And since this one song makes up over a quarter of the album, its significance should be noted.
In summation: bad artwork, a band with the goal of making money and getting radio and television play, no identity, and no structure. No reason to listen.
