Not even quite as deep as a three day old puddle.
Apple of Discord hail from New Jersey, USA and according to their myspace page have a similar sound to acts such as American Music Club, Death Cab For Cutie and Elliot Smith. That all sounds rather promising, as do song titles such as 'You're A Magic Lamp That's Out Of Wishes And Out Of Love', 'Do You Remember The Eclipse' and 'Blowing Out The Sun'. On their webpage the band proclaim 'At the core of melancholy there is always hope' and their album artwork is original to say the least - a hand drawn picture of a family with many more eyes than usual, save for one child who has only two. All of this combines to generate a feeling of promise and expectation when switching on the CD for the first time.
Opener 'You're A Magic Lamp That's Out Of Wishes And Out Of Love' immediately makes the listener realise that all of the fancy artwork and elaborate song titles have been misleading. Four minutes of flavourless pop punk enters your ears, noisy but never tuneful, alternating quiet sections with loud and instantly reminding one of the humdrum last few releases of the Goo Goo Dolls. 'You're A Magic Lamp That's Out Of Wishes And Out Of Love' isn't an entirely forgettable track and after a few listens you may find yourself singing along but it remains as deep as a three day old puddle. 'Poison Arrow' continues the album in the same manner, only with a few more instrumental sections and a generous helping of strumming.
One more fast-paced song completes the opening section in the form of 'The World Will Never Defeat You', a track that sounds as though it belongs as the B-side to a pop rock single from the late 1990s. As it ends we are introuduced to the tinny 'The Earth Turned Slower', the album's first ballad. Similar in feel to the album's other ballads - 'Do You Remember The Eclipse', 'Hold On To Your Love' (which is at least over mercifully quickly, being under three minutes long), 'He Said It Was The Voodoo' and 'I Was So Sure'; the track attempts to move the listener with off-the-shelf emotion that might fool teenagers but which adult listeners will instantly recognise to be a sham. All of these slower tracks feel like album fillers rather than songs created with a robust idea behind them, as do the majority of the faster paced offerings.
Apple of Discord do seem able to churn out a good instrumental section now and then - 'The 100 Secret Senses' is notable for this. Perhaps the only track on the album worth keeping, it combines a catchy chorus with clever guitar hooks and pace changes that are noticeble enough to be intruiging without being so obvious as to be cheesy. If only every track on 'You're Not The Answer' was of a similar standard to 'You're Not The Answer' Apple of Discord might have acheieved 500 myspace friends by now; and perhaps in the future they will be able to pen more songs of this calibre. Until then it is sadly difficult to imagine why anyone would want to listen to this album - even the better song (note, song, not songs) operates on the same pitch and tone as the nine other tracks and the entire album has been built on two shallow ideas - fast song or slow song. So many bands are plugging away at the pop punk rock genre that it takes something truly original or at least spectacularly well-crafted for a band to be able to stand out from the crowd, and sadly this album is neither.