ALBUM REVIEW: Time To Burn – UltraBomb
Imagine you ordered your dream pizza. It’s got all your favourite toppings. On paper, it’s perfect. But the delivery driver drops it off and there’s dents in the box, the cheese is slipping off, and not a single slice is cut evenly; crusts are burnt, toppings missing – someone wasn’t watching quality control tonight. If that was your pizza, you’d be pretty bummed, right? Somehow, power-pop supergroup ULTRABOMB have cooked up that very same feeling of being bummed in their burnt out pizza of a debut, titled Time To Burn. Across eleven slices of undercooked 90s punk-rock, overcooked power-pop, and mediocre alt-rock, the trio tread close to the trash can.
You’d be forgiven for feigning surprise, considering the group’s members include HÜSKER DÜ’s Greg Norton, THE MAHONES’ Finny McConnell, and UK SUBS’ Jamie Oliver. However, opener Time To Burn proves to be a self-fulfilling prophecy, proving ULTRABOMB have nothing but time to burn these days. Whilst R.E.M. and BAD RELIGION on uppers isn’t a bad idea on paper, this power-pop punk-rock combo sounds like it’s swimming in a swamp, swallowed by a mix that outdates its influences.
Fear Your Gods is a second slice of shame, throwing jangle-pop riffs into a blender of a mix that sounds like BILLY IDOL at a new-wave disco, whilst the midway marker Feels tears down the tapestry of college-rock jangle-pop that THE GO-BETWEENS, R.E.M., and THE SOFT BOYS spent the 80s building, floating carefree riffs and poorly-mixed vocals out into the ether.
It’s not the worst pizza you’ve eaten in your life; there are morsels of hope here and there. Stickman Vs Hangman is like a create-your-own slice, with honey-soaked harmonies, battering-ram drums, and a build-up to get the blood pumping for toppings; Star owes as much to the early days of Beatlemania as it does colour-by-numbers college rock, seemingly avoiding the awful mix that plagues the tracks around it to get you singing word-for-word. Unfortunately, it’s few and far between to stop you from starving.
What makes the music that much harder to swallow is the sentimentality simmering underneath in the lacklustre lyrical content across Time To Burn’s tracks. Star is a song every parent on the planet writes for their children, as Norton urges his daughter to chase her dreams no matter what. Unfortunately, it’s lost to the land of whimsy as he sheepishly sings “You want to be a star, be a star / You want to be a star and go far”.
Like their musical direction, their lyrics have some saving grace. Take Stickman Vs Hangman’s punch-up with politics and prejudice, as they split the roles of the world as the “Hangman is the answer, stickman is the rule / Straw man just to fool, law man not amused.” Yet, next to some nonsensical rambling, the meatiness of their metaphorical musings is lost in the final flavour.
Whilst its members have all made music history, it’s safe to say ULTRABOMB aren’t changing the shape of things to come. Time To Burn serves as a deep-dish reminder of doom that just because you can, doesn’t mean you should.
Rating: 3/10
Time To Burn is set for release on May 27th via UltraBomb Records.
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