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Release Date: July 6
Length: Unknown
Genre: Alternative
As a person who reviews music, it may be slightly surprising that one of the bands that got me into music was in fact, Live. Although the band is widely known for their use of bubble gum pop based tunes, something has continued to strike me about their music, particularly the video for the song Lightning Crashes. Among a swarm of music videos involving stardom and sex, this band had the balls to release a video discussing a mothers gruesome end in a hospital bed due to a miscarriage. I've seen this band once, and upon seeing lead singer Eds booming entry upon the stage to the song All Over You, I whimpered "badass" towards the stage, and towards one of the first musicians I had ever found a profound respect for.
As of 2009, it was known that this band had decided to split up for reasons related directly to the lead singer's greed. After this event, Ed broke off, found a backing band, and made himself the star of all musical venture's he becomes involved in. If you would like, we can call this album the first product of that. I wish I had high hopes for this album, but I feel like it would be better for the world if this album...failed. If this album fails, either Kowalczyk steps up his own game and puts soul in his music for the first time in 15 years, or he (hopefully but doubtfully) gives up on his speedily dimming career.
I had to write this review once before this to get my initial thoughts down on paper. The first time I reviewed this, I crucified the album mercilessly, and had decided that I needed to scrap the review because it contained far too much bias for me to post on my website. The conclusion I came to with this album was that, ultimately, Alive could have been a lot worse.
If there is one thing that this album does, it is the job it's supposed to do. Alive is catchy, Alive is filled with music reminiscent of a spiritualist Nickelback, and Alive can't carry good lyrics for more than two songs in a row to save its own life (NB: spiritualist Nickelback). This is what I had expected the album to be, and this is ultimately what it does. Don't get me wrong, the album is far from boring. Ed's voice is beautiful, there's decent flow to be seen, and there are a few really good songs on here...among several very bad ones.
The album opens up with Drive, a song which is moderately catchy, and seems to be about a relationship that the protagonist can't handle anymore. Overall, it is pretty mediocre. In his next song, The Great Beyond, the lyrics coupled with this also moderately catchy song don't seem to make very much sense to me, but I assume it is also about some sort of relations, as the word "girl" is sputtered around a couple of times
We are then met with the lead single in the album, Grace. It sounds nothing like the Live in spirit (It's more grunge than I expected), but the hook and lyrics are pretty reminiscent, and the song is pretty well written (considering what we were dealt with in the first two songs). Also, the video is bad, really bad, so expect a link at the end of the review. Too bad the next two songs don't help anything. Stand and Drink (Everlasting Love), following the single, are terribly written and composed, and Stand sounds like the bastard child of Hinder and Live. As far as the latter song, let me just say that it was co-written by Chris Daughtry of American Idol fame. Yeah.
When I stumbled into Eds site in December or January, there was a period to sign up for free to his fan club, which, among other things, contained a free listen to a "new" song from the (then) future album, a song called Zion. It sounded like a fusion of old and new Live, and the entire song had a brilliant hook while managing to keep pretty decent lyrics, even if it defines spiritualist bull. It sounds the same on the album, although this version is a more recent mix. So far, it manages to be the best song on Alive.
In Your Light, Just in Time, and Rome sound like a harder version of Live's 2006 album, Songs from Black Mountain. What does this mean, you ask? Well, you are presented with songs about love in which it is unclear who is being loved, but you are instead given a whole lot of why. Not only are you listening to bad writing at its finest, but there isn't even the last saving grace of pop (a hook to cover everything up), which means that we should probably assume that this is absolute filler.
Closing the album, we have Soul Whispers and Fire on the Mountain. Soul Whispers is just like the previous three songs, only worse. I wish I had more to say about it. Fire on the Mountain is a pretty nice song, having a decent set of lyrics which, at the very least, makes its point clear. The song also manages to be pretty relaxing, and helps make up for the mess that takes the form of the four previous tunes.
Well, there we are. Three good to very good songs, two mediocre songs, and six terrible songs. I think I would recommend a listen of this album under one of my 2009 categorizations. To get enjoyment out of this album, you'll probably need to just download the notable tracks and forget that everything else existed. This album won't move your soul with its decent flow, and the good songs won't be worth more than three to five listens before you go back to whatever the heck you were listening to before reading this.
Grade: D+
Notable Songs: Grace, Zion, Fire on the Mountain
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