To be honest, I really didn't want to do a review for this CD. I got it the mail, looked at it, and immediately knew two things: This band has a stupid name, and I will probably not like them. Plus, there are other things I could be doing. Camel is coming out with four new brands of cigarettes that I can't wait to try. I would rather do a review on how I love Camel cigarettes, and write about how each different cigarette tastes, and how they are all contributing to me dying. But then I thought, "I write for Scene Point Blank, and goddamnit, I have a certain responsibility to uphold." With that in mind, and my cigarettes the only thing I really wanted, I started listening to Moorea.
Before I get into how the music sounds, there is a lot about this band that bothered me before I actually listened to them. The first was the fact that they realize how many bands have the word "massacre" in their name, but it's alright, because this one was a real event. Being somewhat intrigued, I tried to find out more about this Massacre at Orangeburg. Fortunately for me, the band mentioned what happened in the liner notes. Unfortunately, the handwriting looks to be the work of a five year old in the middle of a seizure, and so I did what every person would do and went to Wikipedia. From what I was able to gather, policemen killed three students during a peaceful protest in Orangeburg, South Carolina in 1968. Peaceful college students protesting segregation killed in a Southern, conservative state during one of the most turbulent times in American history: Shitty? Yes. A massacre? No. Bloody Sunday in Ireland was a massacre. Sand Creek was a massacre. Orangeburg was a small incident in America's long and violent history, as well as a good excuse to include the word "massacre" in your band's name. There are so many cooler names they could have used. The Orangeburg Incident sounds awesome as fuck to me, like something straight out of the X-Files.
The other thing that makes me hate this band without ever having to listen to them is how politically intelligent they are. The CD itself simply says, "Radical change must occur." At first I wasn't quite sure what they were talking about here, maybe about their band and how a radical change is needed in order for them to not make boring, predictable music anymore. However, I was able to decipher from the linear notes almost the same line used again at the end of their big statement about this so-called massacre. So I gather that there must be some political and social change, which is really cute. It kind of reminds me of when I went to college in Southern Virginia, a school that was home to students who love hunting and not being intelligent (hence why I transferred). Anyways, this kid in my creative writing class wrote a paper about September 11th, and asked the simple question: "What did we ever do to these crazy Muslims?" Disregarding CIA-backed coups and all the other fun stuff America has done to the Middle East, the student concluded his paper by stating "A change must occur." Well no shit, but perhaps a solution to the problem could help the situation. This is what the Orangeburg Massacre does, except their solution is to have us educate ourselves about this forty-year-old event so we can impact our world today. Like I said, political geniuses.
To get to the music itself, there isn't much to say, because it is all the same. There is very little variation to the vocals, which are bad to begin with. It sounds as if the singer has never had a conversation without yelling at the top of his lungs, and as a result barely has a voice left to sing with. I'm not really sure what to compare it to, because I try not to torture my ears on a regular basis. The music isn't all that bad I guess, but that doesn't really change that much either. Big bass here, fast drums there, fast parts everywhere, you get the point. You've heard it all before, now you just get to hear it in eleven different songs, none of which stand out on their own, or even have segments that stand out. It's boring, predictable, and rigid "hardcore". It's not surprising though, like I stated above, you don't even have to listen to them to dislike them.
