Released: 6/10/2014
4/7 stars
O.A.R and I grew up in the same town. We went to the same high school, albeit a decade separated us from crossing paths in the hellish cesspool that is Wootton High School. When lead singer Marc Roberge refers to River Road in the first line of the nine-minute "I Will Find You," it's not any random River Road that can be found in any town with a road adjacent to a river, it's my River Road and when he sings about driving on it at midnight, it doesn't sound like the horrible cliche that it is because I understand the surreal magic of driving down the winding road at night with the windows down and music playing. There's a fine line between cliche and authenticity and O.A.R straddles in the line throughout the entire record.
The Rockville LP was born when Roberge, drummer Chris Culous, guitarist Richard On and bassist Benj Gershman came back home to Rockville, MD for Thanksgiving, taking the most time off from recording and touring in a decade. After retracing their former footsteps (they performed in the band room of our former high school), they were inspired and refreshed and began to work on their eighth studio album.
Personally, my favorite O.A.R songs tend to be from their earlier days, "Black Rock" is one of my favorite songs of all time and "That Was A Crazy Game of Poker" is a perfect example of the band's ability to tell a story through an incredibly catchy and fun song. After hearing that O.A.R went back home to record a new album, I was convinced that the record would be reminiscent of their earlier music; a more mature companion to their first album The Wanderer, which was released in 1997.
I was wrong.
Instead of the reggae-infused rock that the band has been known for since they formed in 1996, Roberge and company have turned to some sort of mellow rock/pop/made for commericals kind of sound. Maybe they've outgrown their rendition of frat boy reggae or maybe working with Taylor Swift's producer, Nathan Chapman, took them in a different direction. The album is not cohesive and some songs sound like they were written for an album written as an ode to their hometown, whereas others sound as if they were written by a 13-year-old boy. Instead of reviewing the album as a whole (it really cannot be done) I'll go through each song.
"Two Hands Up" is a fun song. It's upbeat and a good way to start an album. There isn't much to it and the lyrics, well they suck. I can't help but cringe when Roberge sings "the beat of my heart is making me nervous," and the cliche lyrics don't stop here.
Track number two slows things down a little bit and the acoustic guitar sounds nice. However, "We'll Pick Up Where We Left Off" is just another horrible cliche on the album. It's catchy, and I'm sure a lot of people will enjoy listening to the song however the lyrics are empty and leave listeners yearn for "Road Outside Columbus" days.
Roberge wrote "Peace" for his wife who had recently beat a three-year battle with cancer. The band released the song as the first single off of the album and to paraphrase my mom, "this is a nice song!" Yes it is a nice song. There isn't much else to say.
It's not until the fourth song on the record that listeners finally get a little taste of the reggae rock that O.A.R is so good at. Still though "The Element" is definitely not a great song, however, Roberge's mention of being a "wanderer" suggests that the band really is trying to return to their roots and going back to the very themes that they explored nearly a decade ago.
"Favorite Song" is my least favorite song. Trying to be cute and clever, Roberge shoves as many song titles and references in the 3:25 track and it's vomit-inducing. If I was 13, I would think that this was the coolest thing ever but I'm not 13 and referencing Adele, Mariah Carey, U2, The Clash, the Beatles and Elvis and Paul Simon and Bob Dylan in one song is too cliche for me to truly enjoy.
Halfway through the album is "So Good So Far," which is ironic because at this point, the album definitely is not so good so far. Roberge's voice sounds nice but there is no instrumental experimentation and everything sounds safe and the same.
"The Architect" marks the shift in the album, and finally Jerry DiPizzo's sax is prominent. Although the theme of the song is tired, the instruments actually play a role in the song and the guitar solo that begins around the 2:45 mark comes in about 6 songs too late. Roberge's voice has the hard edge to it that seems to be autotuned away in the previous songs and it is much welcomed.
The acoustic and mellow start to "Place to Hide" scared me at first because I wanted to hear the rock side of the band after suffering through the first part of the album. However, it fits perfectly in the song and overall, compared to the rest of the album "Place to Hide" is a highlight. Again, Roberge's voice sounds like it should-full of emotion and unpolished.
One of O.A.R's specialties is the ability to tell an entire narrative in a song. In "Caroline the Wrecking Ball," Roberge tells the story of a relationship with a girl named Caroline who he meets by beating up a pervy old townie who's hitting on her. Of all the songs on the album, this one sounds the most like past O.A.R songs and the band works together to support Roberge's vocals with a consistent, but not overbearing rhythm. It's a long song, nearly seven minutes in total, but it's an easy listen and does't sound as if it's long just to be long.
"I Will Find You" closes out the album and after a week of listening to this album, trying to figure out how to best review it, I'm still so unsure as to where this song came from. This track is nine minutes full of emotion, good lyrics, great vocals and awesome instrumental variation. An ode to The band's hometown, the song starts out with driving along River Road, a long winding road that's alongside the Potomac river and was made for long drives at night in the summer. Even though I'm in the middle of London listening to this song, this song transports me into the driver's seat of my car driving on River Road. However, you don't have to be from the area to understand this song, it can be any road, anywhere. What Roberge is looking for is ambiguous, but by the end of the song he finds it. The song is split up into four parts; each one is nearly a song in itself and the beat and vocals change in each part, together making up a patchwork song that just sounds so good together. It's as if O.A.R had a finite amount of good music to work with when making the album and they decided to use 95% of it on this song.
The Rockville LP is very strange album. The first half is pretty awful and cliche, the middle is eh and the last three tracks are reminiscent of the O.A.R that fans know and love.
