15

Equal parts rock n' roll, and cringe.

Buckcherry. Ugh. The radio play they got with their hit single sorry was enough for me to despise them (more on that later) but after hearing this record I just have to wonder.. why are they even bothering?

To start, we have the song So Far which note for note sounds like Aerosmith's No Surprize. Intentional or not, it does take away from what could be a decent rocker. Next 2 You was an okay tune, but the best song is Out of Line for sure. It reads like a throwback 70's hard rock song, emulating AC/DC and Motley Crüe with it's massive chorus and guitar licks. It's a fun song, I do like it quite a bit. The following song Everything was also quite nice. Another rocker, it just has a good structure and execution. Exceeded my expectations for sure.
Carousel has a nice instrumental but damn those lyrics are corny and not in a good way. Actually made me laugh at how banal they were.

So here's the doo-doo song. Sorry is whiny, juvenile and extremely cringey. His voice is not cut out for a power ballad. It's too Nasally and flat. On top of it all are the lyrics. Literally sounds like it a love poem written by a 16 year old trying to win his girl over while he blasts Bon Jovi's I'll be There For You over a boombox in her backyard. This song is nails on a chalkboard.

I was hoping the next track would at least pick things up and help me wash the cringe away, but while it succeeds in being a faster paced song, the lyrics are far far more cringey. I enjoy sleaze. It can be fun. This is not. This is gross. This song is the equivalent of walking in on your uncle banging his 18 year old girlfriend in the bathroom at your bar mitzvah.

Thankfully the rest of the record avoids the cringe and bad sleaze for the most part. Brooklyn is a twangy stripped back steel guitar jam with some bad lyrics but nothing as horrible as before. Everything else is kinda just standard cock rock fodder. The albums ends without much of a statement with Broken Glass.

So... yeah this album rounds out to just being kinda okay if you take out the terrible tracks. Still, I can't bring myself to rate it any lower than a 5 since I did enjoy pockets of this record. There's much better 00's hard rock out there (Airbourne would like your number) but if find yourself confronted with Buckcherry, just skip the middle portion.

"I will sacrifice, I promise I'll behave"~