Reviews

The new release from Challenger is a mostly mid-tempo combination of some very pop-oriented musical aspects and some attempts to draw in a harder sound.  When I say pop here I don’t mean pop-punk necessarily, just a more mainstream sound to rock music overall, showcased by their vocal harmonies and sometimes cheesy lyrics (“this city has a crush on me” from Crushed City, or “can I kick it” repeated over and over again in the third track, Blackouts). All the press I’ve seen on this band refers to a previous band Milemarker, and usually involves the respective names of shared members, although I’ve never heard of them. Maybe I’m out of my element on that, but what I can tell you is that this cd is pretty mediocre.  don’t get me wrong, its not bad, and its in no way unlistenable, but as I got into it I got really bored. The first song, Input the Output, is hands down the best song on the cd, where the vocalist reminds me a lot of the lead singer from Bane, and the music stays edgy and hard through the whole song. After that though, it just seems to blend together for me.  the vocals overall are spoken and sung, with some screams thrown in for layering, usually with another vocal line spoken over the screaming. The shouting/speaking vocals get pretty monotonous as you go through the cd. The guitars have kind of an older Cursive feel, really crunchy and biting sometimes, but those too become more generic as the songs progress. The whole cd, (minus the first track) is kind of a mid-tempo goulash kind of reminiscent of Bivouac era Jawbreaker or a slightly harder Hot Water Music. Basically, its not bad, but it just gets really boring for me. Most of the songs are between 3 and 5 minutes long, giving each one enough time to get repetitive. My recommendation is to get a couple songs first and if you like it pick it up, but for myself, I can’t get into it.