Pilot To Gunner – Get Saved (Arena Rock)
What we have here is a record that made me feel not the normal highs and lows of experiencing an album for the first time, but almost as though I’ve been robbed. All of the elements of a good record are there—hooky melodies, a solid, music-can-save-you-and-your-future-children opening/title track, a cheeky sense of irony. The problem is that so does everything else these days. When all the aforementioned elements are put together in a way-too-slick production and sound like they’re performed by Appealing Rock Singer Prototype One™, we got a problem here. I found myself wanting to scream at them, “TRY HARDER!”
Yes, I’m very sorry that you’ve spent a great deal of your musical careers opening for bigger bands and being underappreciated, but did you have to write a song about it (“Hey Carrier”)? Yes, I, too, feel that the music scene is full of posers and it must be much more intolerable in New York (“Metropolitan,” “Dry Ice & Strobe Lights”). This is not a revelation, and there would have to be actual feeling behind the lyrics or an innovative way of telling this fact to make me accept that there are two songs on the subject. There’s basically nothing about this record that makes me care. It’s rock by numbers, and I could see them fitting in between Blink 182 and Hoobastank on your local alterna-lite station. Smart listeners, I think, need much, much more than that.
You can download Barrio Superstarrio via Arena Rock.
I couldn’t disagree more. Almost literally everything you’ve said about this record is objectively refutable, so I hope people don’t take this review too seriously. The production isn’t even close to slick, the singer certainly doesn’t have a conventional or archetypal “appealing rock singer” voice, and on an even broader level, the notion that hallmark of most music these days is good hooks and solid melodies is laughable (but I could see where it must have been fun to say).
This record can be absolutely blistering, so I just can’t accept the suggestion that it’s antiseptic and tossed-off.
The ultimate irony is that this review is couched in terms of the responsibility bands owe to “smart listeners” when the review itself is completely misleading to the people that read the site. I encourage people to seek out a second opinion on this record.
Yeah what he said……
So wrong it’s hard to stomach.
This is a great album. Those who don’t realize that don’t understand.
Ms. Horne abused Pilot to Gunner for not trying hard enough while writing one of the laziest music review I’ve ever read. The easiest thing to do is to give a CD one listen and claim that it sounds just like everything else. It’s much harder to give a band a chance and then either explain why it is so good or explain why you didn’t like it.
Pilot to Gunner doesn’t sound like anything else outthere. Comparing them to Blink 182 or Hoobastank is down right lazy. To Ms. Horne, “Try Harder!”
Here’s why the album is so good: because the hooks are complex (unlike Blink 182 or Hoobastand); because the music, like all good rock and roll, sounds desparate (unlike most alterna-lite bands); because you hear something new on the twenthieth listen.
It’s a great album. Don’t let anyone tell you different.
I first heard Pilot to Gunner at Superdrag’s last show, in Boston.
I am rarely impressed by music. I hate the same old stuff. But PtG had me finding mp3s when I got home that night. Strangely, that’s what got me into Superdrag, from a similar show in 95.
PtG is really nothing like conventional. their rythm changeups midsong in fact were so unconventional that it almost annoyed me at first. I WANTED more of a catchy (read: easy) chorus to stick by.
One of the more innovative newer rock bands I’ve heard… without the artsy glam tacked on.