Full Review: This Providence – Who Are You Now?

“Sure As Hell” opens the album with darker more somber tones coming from an electric guitar and for a moment it looks as if the band has another trick up their sleeve. With the album either out already or close to being out songs like “That Girl’s A Trick” have already foreshadowed for most people what this record really has in store. The band was able to progress nicely from each of the previous albums but after the last self titled release it seemed if they were headed for a wannabe The Academy Is…, which I guess begs the question, who are you now?

There is no doubt that This Providence is able to craft a hook and a catchy tune without thinking twice about it, like second nature, but unlike each album before ‘Who Are You Now?’ feels really empty. It was a bit hard to put a finger on it at first but the glaring flaw with this record is how over dramatic and girl obsessed the songs have become. Starting with “Sure As Hell” and using images of God and hell to compare how much you want a girl seems to undermined the seriousness of the mood created.

“Keeping On Without You” Never really peaks into a climax but is able to do more with less. The chorus uses a clever melody relying more on sounds that actual words which is attractive and one of the first songs to pay attention to on the record. You’ll probably notice “My Beautiful Rescue” appears on this record like it did the last; and even though the new updated style fits with the record’s hipster feel it doesn’t do the original acoustic based song justice. Going back to the top of the review, the song which will probably be loved and hated the most by people will be “That Girl’s A Trick” whose melody and hooks only get stronger with each listen. Despite poking fun of it at the start, the song’s not terrible, only humorous with some of it’s lines.

Another guilty pleasure song, “Sand In Your Shoes”, has been floating around as a demo for a long time but hasn’t really been touched or changed since. The song’s nostalgic feeling line “When you’re only 18…falling in love is easy ” should pull at a few heart strings but beyond that the band just really shines when they bust out the acoustic guitars and sway back a forth a tad.

I wish it weren’t true but overall this is just a disappointing album which may seem attractive at first but will quickly fade and be little more than a distant memory when the end of the year comes and everyone is making their ‘best of the year’ lists. In the end it feels like the band is selling themselves short of their full potential, on the bight side though, it’s nothing they can’t come back from.

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This entry was posted on Monday, March 16th, 2009 at 8:00 am and is filed under Full Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.