ROCKSTOP...your source for pop and modern rock CD reviews: HELLOGOODBYE

DAVE's TAKE: Normally I wouldn't put a CD on here on the strength of one moderately decent song but HELLOGOODBYE's "Here in your arms" is a very catchy electro-pop song with the emphasis on the electronic portion. Even the video is awesomely hilarious. If nothing else the song will have you dancing to it and would be a good part of any dance mix. Unfortunately the rest of the album, sans a few tracks, sounds very different and is nowhere near as catchy. This album definitely harkens back to the electro-power-pop days of the 80's when "New Wave" was dominating the airwaves albiet infused with a bit of modern emo spice. "Here in Your Arms" may be enough to propel this group to another CD but I don't see enough standout material on Zombies! Aliens! Vampires Dinsoaurs! to have any reason to believe that HELLOGOODBYE is headed for any kind of signifigant stardom.

SOUNDS LIKE: Panic at the Disco, Motion City Soundtrack, 80's new wave

OVERALL RATING: 5/10 (Not enough standout tracks for me)

SPOTLIGHT REVIEW:

From Tony Pascarella at absolutepunk.net

Hellogoodbye seems set on recalling the glory days of 80’s new wave fifteen to twenty years too late to be relevant. The genre’s window of fame died out before many of their rabid fans were even born, yet Forrest Kline and friends want to suck that musical teat dry with their first full album. Their debut EP, the Hellogoodbye EP, has soared beyond 85,000 units with their appearances on the MTVU tour, Warped Tour, and MTV. They are currently the band bridging the independent-to-mainstream gap on Drive-Thru Records, and Zombies! Aliens! Vampires! Dinosaurs! is a bit of an experiment for Hellogoodbye’s debut full-length.

Danceable beats and random spurts of distorted noise highlight the album’s opener, “All Of Your Love.” Hellogoodbye presents naïve relationship-based lyrics (as we grew to expect from their debut EP) that ultimately shift the focus onto the flagrant overproduction because the song lyrically won’t do much for listeners. “Here (In Your Arms)” is the lead single, but unfortunately it fails to stand on its own two feet. With lyrical gems such as “I like where you sleep/When you sleep next to me/I like where you sleep/Here,” it will give previous fans cause to question whether Hellogoodbye might just be a one-EP wonder. Musically, you will still want to throw a dance party and include this song, but just hope no one actually cares about the incredibly one-dimensional lyrics. “All Time Lows” opens with a keyboard intro reminiscent of Motion City Soundtrack’s latest album, spurring the Hellogoodbye dance craze. This song doesn’t plod along, and sounds like it would be right at home on the Hellogoodbye EP; I consider it a standout on this subpar album.

Switching back to the terrible, the band offers up “Stuck To You.” It is perhaps one of the few songs in which differentiation between instruments is possible, but Forrest’s vocals are appalling and almost unlistenable. There is enough distortion already, but he sings in a high pitch for part of the song (while being accented by lower instrumental parts), and the final product sounds atrocious. Hellogoodbye can pull off the songs when they don’t overproduce them or distort them to some sort of unintelligible alien language known only to 13-year old girls.

You won’t need your MTV decoder ring to see the difference when you get to “Homewrecker” and the acoustic-tinged “Oh, It Is Love.” While many heard the “Homewrecker” demo ages ago, the band’s official release of the song marks a turning point for Hellogoodbye. Straightforward songs with mushy hooks that glint in the sunlight are the band’s strong point. “Oh It Is Love” has a bit too much of a cutesy feel to it, but instrumentally it shows a side of the band we have rarely seen. I would liken it to an experimental track (“Jesse Buy Nothing…Go To Prom Anyways” from the EP) with a completely unexpected music style. The final five songs of the album are a mixed bag of tricks. Only “Touchdown Turnaround” is memorable, and “Two Weeks in Hawaii” turned out downright boring. “Figures A and B” reminds me a little bit of a bloated, synth-happy Relient K.

Zombies! Aliens! Vampires! Dinosaurs! is a definite mixed bag of tricks. It surely is not the worst album out this year, but the music could be much, much better. It lacks a handful of true standout tracks, and that may hurt Hellogoodbye in the end. Drive-Thru will push to get the band on MTV and I anticipate them being successful. If the band can pick up more fans with the new album than they will lose, they can deem it a success. Frankly, this album will not rocket Hellogoodbye to the superstardom they so desire (and from the EP seemed destined for). When they decide to focus a bit more on instrumentation over digitization, I am confident they can write a record to please both sides of the aisle. Until then, Zombies! Aliens! Vampires! Dinosaurs! is one of my major disappointments of 2006."

BEST SONGS: Here In Your Arms, Touchdown Turnaround, Figures A and B, All Time Lows

SONG SAMPLES/VIDEOS: