Screaming Kinks and lousy Brit-pop

Within the first 30 seconds of Say You're a Scream, you'll probably know what you think of The Four Corners. Although I actually listened to the whole album, it wasn't really necessary. This retro Brit-pop band has a solid, defined sound built on scrappy, loud guitars, simple vocal lines and a strong backbeat. Their sound borrows from bands like the Kinks and early Beatles. It's not a bad sound … for the first five songs. But the level of continuity from song to song makes this seem as if the album is one long song with a total of about five different chords and practically no tempo changes.\nPicture the musical interludes with the dancing hippies in "Austin Powers" -- now imagine that lasting for about 35 minutes. I've heard techno albums with more musical diversity and depth. \nFortunately, The Four Corners learned from punk music that bands with limited musicianship are better off writing short songs. All the tracks clock in around two and a half to three minutes. \nThe songs taken individually are much better than the album as a whole. \nThe opening track is a short instrumental theme with early rock style guitar soloing over a simple two-chord progression. The next track continues with the pretty much the same progression heard on the first track and played with the same rhythm and at the same tempo. The sole difference is the addition of the vocals. The lyrics lack the wit of Ray Davies and vocal lines are devoid of memorable hooks. But thanks to poor mixing, the louder and more energetic guitars overpower the singer.\nA few of the better tracks such as "Summer's Time" and "Long Tall Shorty" escape these traps by adding a dose of energy to the vocals and some blues changes. As for the rest of the album, the song titles are more interesting than the songs themselves: "The Pastel Queen: Compassionate Lotus Blossom of Immense Destruction," "Dinosaurs in Brooklyn" and "Miss Moneypenny," for example. \nThe Four Corners have a good cohesiveness as a band and a tried and true sound that just seems underdeveloped. The sooner drummer Neil Cleary and guitarist Ryan Lewis learn that every song doesn't need to be played at 140 beats per minute with drag triplets every four bars and a sitar, the better the band will be.