You Won't Take Much Away From New Pop Evil

Get ready if you like a bunch of macho posturing set to hard rock hot off the grill. "Take It All" is to hard rock what rice cakes are to a balanced diet. You'll have to get used to subsisting off a butt load of empty calories. Sincerity they have. The goods needed to commandeer attention spans longer than ten seconds I'm much less sure of. As for the chorus, you'll see that next to "annoyance" in the dictionary. Little pleasure do I take in suggesting a band's trying way too hard to compensate for possessing way too little in the machismo department but what else can I do? "Take It All" simply comes up empty when it comes to pleasing hard rock disciples. On a scale of one to ten, the lyrics rate a minus three. Any teenage male sporting enough of an ego to covet rock stardom and its accompanying perks could've have tossed these lines off in under two hours. Need proof? The first verse easily could've been a Rocky soundtrack throwaway. "You got that fire burning your eyes lighting up the sky I see it coming. You got desire run through your brain. I see your veins, I see it coming." I'm relieved this song peters out before the 3:20 mark because any longer and whatever novelty factor it had would have worn off by then. Musically, Pop Evil boned up on how to nail guitar chords that serve a regimented purpose then flicker away on the breeze. The notion of there being a price to pay in life to make it to the brass ring isn't exactly trade secret news but Pop Evil knows how to make you watch their amusing gyrations in the name of fulfillment on any level. The repetitive "I'm coming gonna take it all" makes my teeth ache. I grow less convinced of their worthiness each time they blast it over my port bow. Nick Fuelling stands out the most on this track but that's only because he represents a welcome diversion from the aforementioned annoying chorus. The most enjoyable aspect of this chest beater travesty happens to be the still photo of the guys on the accompanying YouTube video. I don't like to be Ned Negativity so I do readily admit to enjoying Joshua Marunde (AKA Chachi Riot) thanks to his ably executed and steady drumming. Perhaps the brass at Universal Music figured this effort didn't merit long studio time so they gave an appropriate heads up to the band to compose something fairly light, you know, like that freshly baked stack of pancakes that gets a morning started the right way. The ploy worked, but that's not a compliment. I have nothing but empathy for the up and coming band that might have had bigger pronouncements to give voice to. "Take It All" leaves you the listener with less that nothing savory to chew on.