Customer Reviews

New Beat

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

good rock music with a bit of a police feel to it. keep up the good work guys. if the exit comes to your town, go & see them. they put on a great live show!

This should appeal to fans of all rock in the broadest sense of the word. Elements of old U2, the Police, the Ramones, even a little Sunny Day Real Estate can be detected yet this is totally unique in its own right.

When did Toad the Wet Sprocket and the Gin Blossoms become key influences on kids with ripped denim jackets and just-so sticky-up hair? Are The Romantics punk rock icons now? Listening to The Exit's New Beat, it would seem the VH1 sounds of yesteryear are entirely unknown to the deaf, dumb and blind first generation of emo babies, who spent their teens thinking The Get Up Kids were the real deal.

I have heard few songs as embarrassing as The Exit's "Trapped", which purports a note-for-note perjury of The Police classic "Spirits in the Material World" before it degenerates into the sort of mid-tempo balladry once offered by bands as borderline lame as The Buckpets. I have to assume these kids have heard The Police, but it seems in their tactless, tasteless drive to get laid and recognized on college campuses, they could care less what lines they cross. Is it too much to ask that their elders-- producers, booking agents-- even family-- clue these kids in? Wait, what am I asking? They're called "The Exit". Originality was never a concern.

Four different songs on this record ("When I'm Free", "Still Waiting", "Scream and Shout" and their sad attempt at a dramatic finale, the two-chord plod "Watertown") could be inserted without alteration into The Gin Blossoms's smooth, post-R.E.M. debut, 1992's New Miserable Experience. Yet, the album cover is a picture of a Clash tribute band.

The Exit seek a free pass to rock stardom, and if it has any defensible purpose, music criticism strives to prevent bands like this profiting from their own ignorance, or that of their audience. The illiterate use of pre-existing imagery, and the shameless musical thefts perpetrated on this record would merit a far lower rating than I've settled on were it not for their passable technical merit, and New Beat's smooth sound, care of famed Ramones producer/collaborator Daniel Rey. It may be a while before I can appreciate the childish glee of "I Wanna Live" and "Pet Semetary" (Rey co-wrote both) without thinking back to this ill-advised outing with the cool kids.

-Chris Ott, September 27th, 2002