Amber Pacific--a band I first heard on my Warped Tour '05 Compilation CD. AP's just that sort of band--it has the kind of sound that you'd hear in the middle of a mix CD and think, “Oh, hey, they sound worth listening to... I like them. Wonder who they are?” That’s AP in a nutshell; a fun, if not entirely original sound. Refreshing, certainly--it's good, fast music with fairly typical sentiments--and an enjoyable album, but nothing groundbreaking. Distinct voice and instrumental choices, sure, fairly discernible from the next band, certainly, but nothing exceptionally paradigm-shifting. Listening to the CD gave me neither the utter headtrip that The Spill Canvas' Sunsets and Car Crashes did, nor the instant attachment of Armor For Sleep's Dream To Make Believe. (Yes, I do like DTMB more than WTDWYAD. Get over it.) Instead I got just a mellow, upbeat feeling.
That said though, The Possibility and the Promise is definitely worth listening to. Its tunes are catchy--I found myself singing the chorus to "Gone So Young" often enough that, after I loaned out my Warped CD, I looked AP up on Purevolume just to get the song right in my head. And instead of getting burned out on their admittedly simple sentiments, the songs have instead grown on me. You see, the songs initially sort of run together, but keep listening, and you'll start to notice little things you like about each song on the album; the guitar intro to "For What It's Worth", for instance, has definitely gotten to me. “For What It’s Worth” sticks in my mind with its nice strings-filled slowdown in the middle, but I usually skip “The Right to Write Me Off” because of the somewhat annoying intro and the mediocre lyrics. "Poetically Pathetic", on the other hand, is another favorite track of mine, and is currently running through my head nonstop thanks to its excellent intro and my desire to sing along to the chorus. Most of the songs are like that; good enough to listen to on single repeat, until the chorus invariably gets stuck in your head. I have a lot of choruses stuck in my head right now. It’s a good thing.
But to continue with my analysis of the songs--while there is a general "sorta angsty but very positive about the whole thing" feel to the album, some tracks are more angsty than others (and naturally, some are more positive than others. Law of averages, people.) With “If I Fall”, though, things get a little different.
Now, with three tracks containing the word ‘fall’ in their titles, I expected to find another example for my earlier “The songs tend to run together” point (I mean really now, there’s a fine line between having a central theme and simply not having a lot of material, and I originally figured that TP&TP was showing the latter). But to my surprise, “If I Fall” slows down the beat and brings in the piano for a Straylight Run-esque emo ballad. And when I say Straylight Run-esque, I’m not being cute here; remember where I said that if you heard an AP song in the middle of a mix CD, you’d start nodding your head and think, “Hey, this is cool”? If you heard “If I Fall” in the midst of a mix CD, you’d start wondering why you hadn’t heard this new SR single yet. Until the vocals, anyway (at which point you’d start wondering why you hadn’t heard this new Something Corporate single.)
In short, Amber Pacific’s The Possibility and the Promise is a refreshing, likeable album. While it may not blow you away with its innovation, it nonetheless manages to stick out of the mainstream by virtue of high-energy (without screaming!) and a strong vocal-and-instrumental base. And okay, the lyrics are, for the most part, pretty good too. Give it a listen.
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A.F. '05 |
