So, we keep getting shit to review on a daily basis, and while I would love to listen to every one a few times, get an idea of the whole flow of the album, the production values, the songwriting and just whether I like it or not, but there’s no fucking time. So, rather than doing something like that, I’m going to judge not the albums, but the cover art.
A Criminal Risk
The Art of Dropping Names
5/10
I was disappointed that the white text wasn’t, you know, names that they were dropping. It was just the album title over and over. The weird fading gradient isn’t terrible, but it’s ultimately too ambiguous. Is it a teen pop-punk band or a radio-rock band from Missouri, I can’t tell.
Man The Change
Defeated
7/10
Well, I like the look, even if it’s a bit like a sniper’s nest for some disgruntled high-schooler who’s played too much Call Of Duty. It’s dirty and broken down, so “Disgruntled” is a solid name for it. Man The Change sounds revolutionary enough, so maybe the sniper-esque cover is dead on. Get it? I know. Guns aren’t funny.
Modern Baseball
Sports
8/10
The fuck? I like that Modern Baseball didn’t take the easy way out and use an awkward picture of Orel Herschiser or something. Instead, they have a baby in a diaper with a fish. Someone’s little sister is super-embarrassed, and as an older brother, I can appreciate that.
Jungle Rot
Terror Regime
10/10
It’s a metal-as-fuck tank going through fire. They win the game.
Tear Out the Heart
Violence
7/10
Shit looks like Castlevania fan art. I’m OK with that.
Malkovich
Great Expectations
9/10
It’s simple, but with the old photograph in the middle, I get the feeling that there’s going to be an actual story there. It’s kind of like a book cover (it doesn’t hurt that there is, you know, a novel called Great Expectations). I have some decent expectations of this one, but I wouldn’t go as far as to say GREAT expectations.
Road To Horizon
Chapters
6/10
Another act going with the book-theme, but between the name of the band to the super grainy look of the cover, I have a feeling I’m going to be yelled at by some scrawny kids with reverse mullets and shitty lip piercings. I bet there’s one “singer” and one dude who screams at me. No thanks, I’m too old for teenage angst.
The Tossers
The Emerald City
4/10
Really? What the fuck are you trying to go with here? Two different and vastly different fonts, a cloth-like texture surrounding a beat up image of a well-lit city in a frame made of a claddagh ring with a skull on top. No. Stop. I had to give this a listen to see what the hell the Tossers are up to and I found out they are a band who seems to think that “Flogging Molly” is a genre. Well, it’s not.
-Jonathan Yost