All Star United - The Good Album; A Review

So it’s been a while since I have done a CD review, and I’ve been meaning to write this one up for at least a week! So the eagerly awaited ‘Good Album’ has been released after a three year absence of new material for the American based band All Star United (ASU). I’ll start off by saying that Love and Radiation (2006), their previous album, is fantastic, it is an album that I still rate with five stars, and that it had set a very high bar for The Good Album.

The album weighs in at 11 tracks, coming to a disappointing 35 minutes, however that is fairly similar to Love and Radiation, so I won’t judge yet! The opening track, Surface of the Sun, opens with a sound that is distinct from their previous offerings, however at the same time very ASU! It is loud, catchy and very in your face. Suffice to say, that the album opens well.

This continues throughout the album, track two; Is This The Moment, is another ASU track, it has a very distinctive rocky beat with clear lyrics. The Blame drops the tempo into a thought provoking track three; “all the things you cover up, I’ll wear them like the wounds of love, and hold you till there’s nothing left to say…”

Crashing Cars is the most ASU keeps up the sound of loud and summery, which is seen a lot in previous album, and track seven; Dude… That’s Freakin’ Awesome came out of the same mould as ‘The Song of the Year’ off of Love and Radiation. It looks to be Ian Eskelin’s opinion on modern culture at the moment, one of the best lines being “you quit your job so you could play world of warcraft everyday.” The track has already made it onto the tubes and you can find a little montage on YouTube.

Okay, so my final opinion. The album is good, very good, however not as good as Love and Radiation. It still has ASU written all over it and that is great, however it just lacks something new to define it. Maybe it will grow on me more, however at the moment it will just have to deal with just missing the five stars and being awards four instead.

The tracks that standout for me are Surface of the Sun, The Blame, and I’m a Killer.

You can listen to more of the album on the band’s MySpace page, or you can purchase the album from Cross Rhythms for £9.97, or if you prefer download the album from Amazon.co.uk for £5.99.