Major League - The Truth Is...

After my completely negative review of Major League's album 'The Wonder Years Revisisted', or whatever it was called, I thought it was necessary to review their other album 'The Truth Is...', which is said to be original material and a great album overall. I'm generally obliged to believe what people have to say about a band, because I trust people's opinions on shit most of the time, so I'm actually pretty excited about reviewing this one.

It should be stated immediately that, while these songs are more original than the ones in their later EP, it is still very clear that these dudes are huge fan of the Wonder Years, and it shows in all of their songs. Honestly, this is something that is going to happen. They're both pop punk bands out of Jersey. I mean, most the bands from the East Bay scene in the early 90s sounded exactly the same. This also holds true for a shit load of pop punk groups out of Minneapolis is the past decade or so. Bands of a scene flock together. Or something like that. SO, the fact that they have a shit load of Wonder Years influence in these songs, does not make them a Wonder Years rip off band. That was just a couple songs they released on another EP, and I still have no idea why they felt it was necessary, but it's their band, not mine.

'The Truth Is...' is basically like a mixture of brocore and easycore, and I'm not 100% sure what this mix of genres should be dubbed as quite yet, but I'm sure we can brainstorm something up. Uhh...chillbrocore? I don't know, it's not really all that important right now. What I'm basically saying here is that this band basically sounds like Wonder Years with a lot more added New Found Glory influence. It should also be pointed out that they bear some instrumental resemblance to Motion City Soundtrack in a couple of these songs...which really isn't a compliment that I give out often. I think it's more just that the intro to "Head Up, Kid!" reminds me of Motion City. It's also one of the better songs on this release.

I'd say the best song on the release though, and one of the only ones I really can get into, is "What You Make Of It." It's basically just another song about hating where you live, and being catchy about it. It's kind of ironic that I gave the band shit for sounding like The Wonder Years, and then the song I like the most on this album is the one that sounds the most like TWY. Pretty fickle of me. The singer kind of sounds like an anxious high schooler for the most part, and I don't mean that lyrically. I mean that regarding his voice. He just sounds really young. As far as the production on this album goes, it sounds pretty nice. The drums are probably the only part of the recording I don't like, other than the way the vocals were produced. I don't know enough about recording to know what they did with the vocals, but it definitely sounds like some annoying effects or compressing was involved, and it's a little bit lame.

I think the main appeal of The Wonder Years as of late is how much they sound like an early 90s emo band when it comes to vocals being raspy and serious. Four Year Strong kind of made that change for their newer album, adding gruffer voices to their shit, and it definitely made them sound more mature and like a solid band.  So basically, the only beefs I have with this album would have to be that I don't really like the vocals so much, and the drums sound really weird, and I guess that's really just it. I don't dig it, but I don't dislike it. I think when it comes to music in this style, I'll probably stick to listening to All Set from Massachusetts, but I'll at least know that if I need another band to add to my easycore/brocore mix for when it's xbox time, I can always throw 'The Truth Is...' into the batch.

I know I don't often give like blah blah blah out of blah blah blah type ratings, but I supposed I give this release about a 6/10, for what it's worth. 10 being Handguns, 1 being Pilot Around the Stars.

-Idle

Major League. Idle and the Bear.