Emotionalpunk.com
Media Review
Music Quality: 1.5
Production: 7.0
Originality: 0.0
Tracklisting
2. Anesthetic Parade
3. Nation, Forgive Us
4. Parody At The Masquerade
5. Soap Opera
In the era of dance-pop, I've gotten rather bored of the contrived, typical Killers/Bravery/Hot Hot Heat/Crap craze, so undoubtedly listening to another band doing the same synth powered dance pop rock jams was a bad move. "Infinite Jest" is the debut EP from a band who are no doubt bound to see big things in the next year or so. So how is it, honestly?
The production's there, and the band's obvious sense of what they want to do is solid. I'll give them that--they want to be Hot Hot Heat, and they do it well.
Needless to say, I was instantly turned off by the contrived, obvious similarity to every other dance/pop act out there (see Hot Hot Heat, ImaRobot, the Killers, Bravery, and blah blah blah), and while at moments I almost found myself tapping my toe, I can't say I can enjoy this at all. "Anesthetic Parade" has its moments, with its blazing, almost punk guitars and expected but still classy synth backing but the squealing from the band's singer kills the verse. The chorus has a sense of nice melody at catchiness to it, but again the similarity to just about everything I have heard is just too strong to ignore.
I must be the only one who is completely sick of this, because bands like this keep on sprouting up, but I figure, hey, what's a few words of honesty about how dispecable I think this band is going to do? They're going to be huge anyways. So if you're into the whole Hot Hot Crap craze, go for it and pick it up, you won't be disappointed--it's got everything you want in that case.