Blam - Caveat Emptor

  by Geraint Jones

published: 12 / 5 / 2004

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Review

Not having heard or in fact read about them before makes it hard to assess the band’s progress or make comparisons to their debut which seemingly gained plaudits upon its release last year. The Blam are yet another New York band which is as fashionable a place to come from as any. At least it was last week, wasn’t it? After the first couple of plays the album left me fairly cold although a couple more spins since then, it’s made a little more impact. The title track’s simmering effervescence, albeit not sounding too dissimilar to the Strokes is pretty good. ‘How Did The Flies Get In?’ demonstrates a knack for subdued melodicism and some crafty touches – and despite sounding like the CD is stuck half-way through, that is actually deliberate. ‘Eliott’ is a pleasant, though overlong, slice of dreamy pop and they really let themselves go on ‘I’m In A Panic’, which good though it is could again just as easily have been the Strokes. Even though there are some promising touches and some good tracks, ‘Caveat Emptor’ sounds far too derivative and comes across as a contrived attempt at New York cool at the expense of crafting something genuinely original. Too much sub-Sonic Youth meets the Strokes and not enough of the Blam unfortunately. ‘Caveat Emptor’, Latin for “let the buyer beware” does just that though in this instance probably not quite as they intended, and as a whole the album is really a fairly tepid affair rather than a statement of cool.

Track Listing:-

1 Death or Glory
2 Calm Down
3 Caveat Emptor
4 How Did the Flies Get In?
5 It's Not Personal
6 Writing on the Wall
7 Eliott
8 The Box Is for Me
9 I'm in a Panic
10 Everybody