Crash My Model Car - Ghosts and Heights (album)
All the way from the outer reaches of the British Isles where the girls are fair, the nights are long and the sentiment is overwhelming. Spending time such a literal and metaphorical distance from the rest of the UK, the music of Crash My Model Car can't help but be infused with some kind of genuine spirit...surely?
From the title I'm guessing that this is an heartfelt ode to tales of life and love away from the bright lights where myths and legends rule the roost. Considering a childhood spent in the far reaches of the Scottish Hebrides I am more than surprised to hear that singer Iain Morrison has somehow picked up an American accent. His voice so forcibly quivering with commercially approved emotion it brings the vomit to my throat. The fact that the drearily glossy US show 'The OC' used one of their songs speak volumes. Each song is hardly distinguishable from the next as you try your best to fight off the yawns.
Delicate and sweet is clearly the aim here with the guitar strumming along nicely to the token americana lyrics. CMMC are breaking hearts and mending them at the same time, don't it bring a tear to your eye?..(sob)
The songs desperately try to 'kick in' in places but are embarrassingly weak and feeble. Attempting to break out of the mundane by 'rocking out', the band fall as flat as a badly timed souffle. I won't single out any particular tracks because frankly I can't. Its all awful, formulaic dog-dirt.
There is the occasional haunt of cello, parp of brass and a change of chords that might do well in another more adventurous band's hands, but on the whole it is the very height of Snow patrol brand banality. The quote at the foot of the press release brings a tinge of guilt: "Ghosts and Heights represent the last three years in the life of CMMC, WE HOPE YOU LIKE IT"...
I'm really sorry about this guys but it would be pointless to lie. We do not need yet another band churning out this saccharine slop.
It is very hard to find a good thing to say about this album other than I've heard worse. But at least if I truly hate something it has caused a reaction, you wouldn't notice Crash my model car if they stripped naked, set themselves on fire and danced like cossacks. The fact that yet another slice of drabness has got ahead of the countless great bands who remain undiscovered is more than depressing. No doubt they'll be very successful and their sell out shows in native Scotland are terrifyingly bad omens for it.
horrible, horrible, horrible