An Experiment - Asking Alexandria, Stand Up And Scream

I'm sure a lot of you are aware of Asking Alexandria. They're that band with the crazy people, apparently bigger in the U.S. than over here, but still pretty formidable anyway. As I'm sure many of you have, I heard of them first through Kerrang! I've not listened to them before, but they look like something I might like, so I'm going to have a listen to their Stand Up And Scream album from 2009. Let's do it.

Alerion
It starts off with a girl calling someone in the rain, and now there's sort of dance music-y noises, and guitars. It sounds alright, but I'm not really excited yet . . . oh now there's screaming. I like it, but it's kind of . . . it doesn't feel like they're doing it right.

The Final Episode (Let's Change The Channel)
Guitars. This sounds better, but I'm still not sure. It's good, but it's not interesting me at all. It doesn't feel like a song that I need to listen to, like I could completely forget I'm listening to it if I wasn't writing this right now. It just sounds like someone doing a quick impression of metal. The singing in the chorus is good though. I like it more as the song goes on. I just feel like they're doing a lot of that sort of jerky guitar stuff as opposed to actually using some kind of riff for it or a real rhythm. Nooo, actually. Changed my mind. Don't like this one, and I'm kind of pissed off that I've committed to listening to this album all the way through.

A Candlelit Dinner With Inamorta
They're doing it again; ignoring creating a guitar riff and just going for the jerky stuff and screaming because they can. I'm not feeling this at all, the songs feel really empty. Like, normally with a good song you can feel some kind of story or feeling there even without looking at the lyrics, but these just feel flat. Why is there a dance music bit in this too? It's not even good dance, it's like the shitty Eurotrash stuff. It doesn't fit in at all, it's like they've just decided to stick it in because they've run out of ideas. It's actually kind of depressing me, I was hoping I'd be discovering a new band to listen to here.

Nobody Don't Dance No More
I can't tell the difference between this and the previous three songs. If there hadn't been a pause at the end I'd have thought it was just one really long song . . . god I'm bored. How long's left of this? What a surprise, there's random dance music type stuff inserted in this one, too.

Hey There Mr. Brooks
Eight songs left after this. I don't think I can keep listening, they're making my mood plummet and I really can't handle that, I'm bad enough without help. Fast-forwarding.

Hiatus
FOR FUCKS SAKE STOP USING DANCE MUSIC, IT DIDNT WORK THE FIRST FIVE TIMES, WHAT MAKES YOU THINK IT'S GOING TO WORK NOW?

If You Can't Ride Two Horses At Once . . . You Should Get Out Of The Circus
please stop. Reading about Ed Gein to pass the time until this nightmare's over. This song's boring me to death.

A Single Moment Of Sincerity
Ugh. The only skill I'm seeing so far is their ability to make 3 minutes and 51 seconds last longer than I would have previously thought possible.

Not The American Average
this sounds slightly different, enough for me to pay attention. I kind of liked it, but now it's gone boring again. This is painful to listen to.

I Used To Have A Best Friend (But Then He Gave Me An STD)
I can actually feel this having a negative effect on my mental health. It's just . . . so boring and shabby, there's no effort at all in this. It's just a one-dimensional impression of metal.

A Prophecy
Bored. Out. Of. My. Mind.

I Was Once, Maybe, Perhaps A Cowboy King
I've said this before, but really all that's possible to say about this is that it sounds exactly the same as every other song on the album. I was really, really hoping Asking Alexandria would be a band I could like, and I'm so disappointed. The way people go on about them, I thought they'd be good.

When Everyday's The Weekend
Finally, it's over. Well, after this last one. It's like if Katy Perry did metal instead of pop. You could just put the same song on an album 14 times and release that, and nobody would realise anything was unusual about it.

Never ever listening to these guys again. Definitely not in the foreseeable future, anyway. Wow, my ears feel damaged after that. They put more effort into the song titles than the songs themselves.