Reviews

Pensive's third album, Artifacts, is regrettably forgettable. The review took me forever to write because I had no thoughts about them. They're not particularly bad, but they're not particularly good either. To summarize: meh.

Pensive has quality instrumentation, a clean vocalist singing in key with lyrics that greatly oversimplify nuanced emotional issues into I-am-so-upsets and my-heart-is-so-brokens. They are kind of like what The Get Up Kids would sound like if The Get Up Kids had a penchant for power pop...and also weren't very good. Pensive operates on a basic rock platform and then drifts between various punk and emo standards.

When they try their hand at the wistful, lovelorn track on "Without You Here," they wind up with filler strumming beneath lyrics like ‘Everything I see/Reminds me how it used to be/My lungs refuse to breathe the air/Without you there." Without the floating, mournful second guitar that's interspersed between verses this is a total washout.

Pensive gets more upbeat on "We're All Insane" and tries the shout-a-long chorus and hand claps for that true, participatory ‘society sucks' song. "Live Fast" and "Summer Is Gone" mark the live-it-to-the-fullest rock out numbers, contrasted by slightly heavier tracks like "The Words You Say."

The album closes on "What Dreams May Come," which starts off with fairy-themed music box music and goes into a minstrel-esque ode before eventually degenerating into the typical rockin' Pensive love song: "Every time I close my eyes/There you are with your sweet smile/Nothing else compares to you."

Artifacts is what happens when you take absolutely no risks when making an album. Pensive did nothing to deserve derision and nothing to deserve praise. Essentially they did nothing but reproduce the general idea of what emotional, power pop sounds like. In order to do anything worth paying attention to you have to take a risk with your lyrical construction, your musical progression, your subject matter, anything. Otherwise you're stuck with meh.