Alien Crime Syndicate has some pretty snazzy packaging, which as far as I can tell is why I bought the album. The four band members are on the cover in a gray scale picture on a yellow background with six white dots behind them. Its kind of a modernist aesthetic. The band members look vaguely Asian so I may have thought it was some kind of J-pop album. Had I checked the copyright I would have noted that these guys were on a major label and had come out at the same time as Smash Mouth, which made these kinds of minimalist jet age covers very in vogue.
If this album has a theme it is that these guys were talented song writers trying to get famous during the era of Sugar Ray and Smash Mouth. People are going for overly simplistic, rock influenced pop songs with an edge, so that is what the band wrote and put on the album. That’s kind of sad. The opening track “Ozzy” pretty much comes out and just begs the listener to like them:
“Please just lift up your hands if you like me
If you like Ozzy or the Motley Cru”
The second song then includes some pretty nice punk/new wave influenced synth solos, very much in the vein of Smash Mouth.
I do like Smash Mouth’s first few albums, and I’ve been known to sing along to a Sugar Ray song when I thought no one was looking, so I’m not trying to pull the indie kid holier than thou thing here. It just feels like these guys are not at all happy with doing this. The songs are so overly thought out and by the numbers it hurts. Not because they are cliché, though they certainly have cliché moments. Its just that one really gets the feeling that these are not the songs the band wanted.
Alien Crime Syndicate formed in LA in 1997 and soon moved to Seattle, where their first two albums were highly acclaimed in the scene but failed to break radio. The band broke up in 2005 after another album was lost in the indie upheaval of 2004. The members all joined well regarded indie bands, including Vendetta Red and The Long Winters. I’m kind of sympathetic to these obviously talented musicians and song writers but I wonder if, after the indie thing dies away, they are all going to go join Foster the People-style bands. Or maybe strap on some leiderhosen if Polka-punk is the next big thing in the underground.
But all this is background information. This album dies on two key aspects of the music: the overly polished production of the songs and the freaking god-awful vocals. Given the clear goals of this project the first aspect I can understand, though it really dates the project. When I listen to the music on this album I could just as easily be listening to Oleander’s “Unwind.” But that would be ok it was the only issue. Hell, I still listen to Oleander from time to time; they make a good use of melody, and so do Alien Crime Syndicate. But the lead vocalist of Alien Crime Syndicate cant hold a tune. It is fucking inexplicable. I really do not understand how an album this glossy got to press with vocals this out of key, especially since the songs depend on vocal harmonies for their structure. The only think I can think of is that this is some kind of attempt to give the music “edge.” It certainly puts my teeth on edge. It’s like if the Beatles added a fifth member for Abbey Road who was credited as the “chalk-board scratch-enist.” Or if the Shins decided to change their sound by pissing on the tapes after recording. Or if fucking Peter Paul and Mary took a dump on your chest.
Like, did this guy record the vocals without turning on the monitors? I know the album was self produced, but did no other band members think to go “Joe, you are flat on…on all the tracks. There is not a single track in which you are really in tune the entire time and…its kind of bad? Could we just…redo the vocals? Or maybe rewrite the songs so you aren’t outside your range? Or something?”
So I guess what I’m saying is that I’ll be selling this one back to the Record Exchange, but I will try to buy another Alien Crime Syndicate album to see if this was just this album or what. Part of me feels bad for these guys, absolutely. But my god, dude. Your vocals are so bad I need to shower after listening to your album.
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