1. Answer 30 Questions
2. 50/50 Dicey City
3. Jail Bait
4. Back in the Day
5. Huge Sigh of Relief
I totally get what The Human Targets are trying to achieve, which, I believe, is hard-hitting punk with occasional ska licks a-la-Five Knuckle and psychobilly rhythms, topped off with lyrics that are bleakly looking at modern society and looking back to the 'good old times' in places. The problem is, despite these big plans for their music it isn't pulled off with a great degree of accuracy or originality, making the end result something that couldn't help this band rise above the 'local punk band' status.
Various things niggle me about this CD, there's some ambitious time changes at points in some of the songs and more often than not, one member of the band is lagging behind, making frustrating listening. One of the other things that I'm not too keen on is the lyrics themselves, which are fairly simple but slightly cringeworthy; songs about nothing more than how we used to get drunk a lot and skank to our favourite music have been done to death, so if you're going to write a song about this, I think you've got to be very imaginitive with your lyrics. And I find the song about Jail Bait a little unnerving how it makes light of what is actually a pretty serious subject, but each to their own, if that's their style then that's their style.
I wouldn't really choose to buy this CD personally, as it doesn't seem to get above 'pretty average' for me.
myspace.com/thehumantargets
Nik's rating for this CD is:
