Rise - Signal To Noise

  by Andy Snowball

published: 5 / 6 / 2002

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Review

A quick glance at the ludicrous song names and the geeks in the picture give rise to the hope that this will be some Man or Astroman ? Type silliness. Sadly, such hopes are quickly scuppered by the realisation that 'Signal To Noise' is in fact a record of the very worst kind of of ignorant pretentiousness and jock-rock shoutery. In the same manner as Fred Durst’s ludicrous claims to be a sensitive, troubled young artist, these hapless first year HND philosophy and business studies students (or whatever the US equivalent is) have forced upon us an abominable collection of nonsense lyrics accompanied by tedious riffola and, essential for all serious US rock bands these days, some bloopy computery bits. Yawn. With lengthy titles like ‘The Fallacy of Retrospective Determinism’ and ‘Goals, Methodology, Assessment’, the songs are meaningless rants of social commentary and puerile rubbish. On ‘Constructive Criticism for a Predetermined Body Type’ the words have absolutely no connection with the lofty name, instead telling us: “Come on and stay down/Come on, there’s a party going on”. Suddenly, ‘Break Stuff’ seems like the very height of lyrical sophistication. ‘The Concept of Transience’ tells us: “Nothing beats the epitome of false preconceived notions/And I fell down gripping for solid ground.” What? WHAT!? On closer ‘The Machine Question’ (not, sadly, a dialectic on the viability of the Turing test with a jaunty nu-metal backing) the listener is punished for persevering this long as the ghost of David Bowie’s drum ‘n’ bass flirtation haunts us while the band tell us what they learned from 'No Logo'. Perhaps in a few months’ time the Rise will be able to pass onto us the benefit of what they learned during their second semester, so expect to hear songs like ‘Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason is Very Long’, or ‘Logical Positivism is Really Rather Interesting’. I hope not, though. Signal To Noise would actually be amusing were it not so infuriating, because after a couple of listens the ignorance of these people becomes too much. Now stop making all that racket, boys, and do your homework.

Track Listing:-

1 The Fallacy of Retrospective Determinism
2 Am Automated Response If You Will
3 If All You Have Is A Hammer Everything Begins To T
4 Constructive Criticism For A Predetermined Body Ty
5 The Concept of Transience
6 Station Identification For The Painless
7 Sophisticated Approach
8 51/17
9 Goals Methodology Assessment
10 The Question Machine