The Black Swan is the third album from alt-metal gang Story Of The Year, and has the ring of a band reaching hard to replicate the success of their début.
Their methodology appears to be based on ticking all the right boxes. The Black Swan has elements of pretty much every contemporary metal and punk style in it somewhere, combined with accessible songwriting which lends a certain familiarity to the songs even on a first listen.
But it’s not just a familiarity of sound as it is a familiarity of approach – you see, I’ve realised that Story Of the Year (and some other bands of a similar type) are the Bon Jovis of their generation.
That’s not to say they’re wearing big teased hair and singing about Johnny’s job at the docks, though. The similarity is that Story Of the Year know the right musical buttons to press at the right moments, just like Jon and friends did back in the day. The Black Swan distils every trick in the rock playbook into a set of songs that will have you liking them despite yourself.
Oh yes, despite yourself - there are a few belting numbers on The Black Swan, but they’re interspersed with naked attempts at mass popularity, and it makes listening to Story Of The Year like a very predictable rollercoaster, right from the start.
“Choose Your Fate” is a great opener, driven by chunky metal-punx riffs and shouty political angst, but it’s followed by the cookie-cutter radiemo of recent single “Wake Up”. If rock songs were written by committees and focus groups, “Wake Up” is how they would sound.
Story Of The Year repeat this pattern all the way through The Black Swan: a brief musical peak before a clattering ride through the predictable territory of well-used ideas. For every moment of pop-metal genius like “Tell Me (P.A.C.)” you get the safe structures of vanilla epics like “The Black Swan” or “Angel In The Swamp”.
But strangely enough, it was at the musical low-point of “Message To The World” - a song that seemingly attempts to resurrect eighties Euro-rock in the vein of Scorpions – that I started to forgive Story Of the Year for their obviousness. It was at this point I realised that these guys really care about things.
Like much of The Black Swan, “Message To The World” depicts young Americans grappling with international opinion of their nation. They’re proud to be American, but they’re ashamed of what’s been done in their name - and as naïve as it may be at times, I don’t think I’ve heard it done as earnestly as Story Of The Year manage it here.
Which brings us back to Bon Jovi, a band who (as far as I know) never wrote songs lamenting their government’s mistakes, but who had the knack of catching the Zeitgeist and wrapping it up in obvious but decent tunes.
Story Of the Year update that formula for the late noughties: metal meeting pop head on with minimal cheese, maximum accessibility, with things to say and huge radio-friendly hooks that you’ll be singing along to by the time the last chorus rolls around.
The Black Swan is a pop album, yes; and if you’re a seasoned metal fan (or over twenty-five, or both) there’ll be nothing here you’ve not heard before. But I defy you to listen to the epic closer “Welcome To Our New War” and not find yourself secretly wanting to be sixteen years old, sweating furiously in the mosh-pit of your first proper gig and screaming along to the lyrics.
Story Of the Year aren’t going to change the world, but on The Black Swan they sound like they want to … and like they believe they can. And that’s no bad thing.
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Posted in Music reviews |
Tags: alternative, emo, metal, pop, Story Of The Year, The Black Swan
