Release Date: May 21, 2002
Reviewed by Vin Cherubino
Usually everytime I see an indie CD or emo rock, I kindly toss the CD into a big pile of unwanted cds after a few minutes. Right before listening to HTH I had a premonition that I would be doing the same thing. After listening to the whole CD though, I was proud to keep it away from that dreaded bin. That doesn’t mean the CD is great by any means, it just means that it is a good representation of a genre that sorely needs it.
HTH does a great job lyric wise, but the music itself reminds me of a dulled out version of Weezer. There are many similarities between the two bands, and if you are a big Weezer fan then you will probably dig the album, but it just doesn’t fit for someone looking for something with a harder edge to it. The album itself doesn’t sound mixed as good as it should be for a major label release, and it just reminds me too much of a poor 128k mp3. The song “Questions” far exceeds any other song on the album. If the album followed the style of that song, it would have been more interesting. The rest of the songs are mellow and some are just boring. I could see someone listening to this as a chill out album, but it just doesn’t fit as something I would like to see live.
Overall, Home Town Hero is a good album, it’s just not something meant for the aggressive music listener.
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