Grand Theft Bus - Made Upwards

  by Malcolm Carter

published: 7 / 5 / 2009

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This is the third album by the Canadian four-piece who apparently had this album of eleven band originals nominated for Best Alternative Recording Of The Year in the 2009 East Coast Music Awards. Formed in the year 2000, the band, on this showing at least, fail to display any signs of being anything than yet another competent indie band who are destined to always draw sizeable crowds to their gigs, but who will probably never make an album that will gain them world-wide recognition and respect. There is really nothing bad about the music they write or their playing. In fact the band comes across as being masters of their instruments but they’re doing nothing new. The songs are melodic, well played and produced and the vocals are spot-on. It’s just that there is little here that actually moves the listener. It’s pleasant but there are very few moments during the album’s 50 minutes that actually touches the listener. This music could have come from any band from the eighties until the present day. The sounds of any indie-influenced band from XTC through to Franz Ferdinand can be heard in these songs. It’s catchy melodic pop / rock but it’s saying nothing new. Music should touch us, move us; transport us to another world. It should make us happy, sad, make us want to jump for joy or console us under the bedclothes for a week. It should affect us. Unfortunately Grand Theft Bus on ‘Made Upwards’ fail to do any of the above. There’s nothing that grabs you by the throat and makes you want to listen to the whole album. There are moments on most songs where you think that things are finally going in the right direction only to feel let down again when the song ends up going nowhere. The tunes are there, the guys can sing and play and I’d put money on Grand Theft Bus being a fine band on stage but on record there’s little passion and the few times emotion breaks through it’s for all too short a time. We can turn on our radios and hear music similar to this at any time and on almost any pop / rock station and when I want to listen to sounds like this then that is what I’ll do. Why would I shell out my hard-earned to hear something that, although very well-crafted, is saying nothing new to me ? I wouldn’t go as far as to say that ‘Made Upwards’ is background music. There is far too much happening in some of the better songs like ‘Stretch’ where the band do musically expand out but it would have been nice to have a whole album of such sounds. It really is a matter of having heard it all before. Another time, another year even when the music scene isn’t as active and as full of talent as it is just now and Grand Theft Bus might well be up there shifting shed loads of albums, but just now they sound like just another band battling for our ear time and not doing anything different to deserve it. I’ll certainly keep an eye and ear out for Grand Theft Bus in the future and hope that the musical wind changes or the band inject something into their future recordings that will draw them out from the crowd.

Track Listing:-

1 Do I Have to Dance
2 Automatic
3 Stretch
4 White Flags
5 Private Wars
6 Roses
7 Don't Go Say That
8 I Guess Not I Guess
9 Fifo
10 Oma
11 Someone Who Knows

Label Links:-

http://www.forwardmusicgroup.com/
https://www.facebook.com/forwardmusicgroup
https://twitter.com/forwardmusic
https://www.youtube.com/user/ForwardMusicTube

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