I Prevail Won't Forge A Career On The Strength Of "Alone"

It's no wonder rock critics grow jaded over time. Same message about girl walking out of boy's life is such a tired cliche that it doesn't need Sominex to help it fall asleep. Yet here we are in 2017 being served the same tripe once again, this time courtesy of I Prevail, a band formed in 2014 that apparently didn't get the memo. Nothing about "Alone" convinces me that I should somehow care about the plight of Brian Burkheiser who doesn't croon so much as bellyache. You can't detect the whining but trust me, it's not that well hidden. The first stanza comes straight from the cliche Hall of Fame. It was the two of them against the world at the start and then...she left him all alone, knowing that she wasn't coming home. So much pining for so little reward. Later we get around to how she's locked him out of her world, the selfish little tramp. Could there be a line any more cringe worthy than "Feels like eternity, and I can't believe I let you in, you left me out. Eternity is one of those words that kind of gives me the heebie jeebies simply because I don't know how long that unit of time might be. That kind of word gives me relatively the same headache as hearing about the latest mind blowing high Powerball jackpot. I just don't have a use for 370 million dollars and the like. I'd have to live to be 800 to spend all of it or divide it between the many charity causes I support. What I'm saying is Brian's guilty of pathos overkill and there doesn't appear to be an apology coming from the I Prevail camp. Steve Menoian phones in the lead guitar work for reasons that must lie somewhere in the wheelhouse of "Even I know this song's lame and I'm the one who'll ultimately have to go on tour to promote it. Lucky me, huh. Dylan Bowman's rhythm guitar doesn't light up the night sky with fireworks either. The prevailing chord merely reinforces the fact that the last drop of anything resembling musical artistry is going, going, gone. In addition don't you just hate those dreams you wake up and can't recall. It's like that melon on top of your neck is taunting you. Brian offers that nugget in the name of human to human insight. He also points out that this particular dream featuring his now apparently ex lover plays in his mind on repeat. That's gotta either suck, smart, or a little bit of both. Over and over we're drawn back to "I let you in, you left me out. It grows to migraine inducing status until you want to end the torture by knocking yourself out cold with a blunt instrument. If you do regain consciousness maybe you'll have enough memory loss to forget "Alone" ever existed. "Alone" doesn't have the mettle to encourage repeated listenings. You're better off finding a crowd of buds to hang with instead.