War Stories released their self-titled album on August 19th and, after contemplating it for a while, I haven’t really come to any definite conclusions. There are a couple of options here. The first is that War Stories, members Evan, Reid, Eric, and Adam are trying to be innovative. Sometimes trying something new isn’t always understood. This is possible. The alternative possibility is that this band wasn’t intending to try something new, but somehow missed the mark on doing what everyone else is doing. The third and most likely option is that War Stories set out to try to do what everyone else is doing in a more innovative way and somehow their miss-mash of conventional and creative came out like bread without yeast—flat.
War Stories performs simplistic guitar melodies reminiscent of eighties pop rock. That’s nothing terrible. What makes this band hard to tolerate and almost comical is the vocals. The vocals drag through each song in a deep wandering melody. Lead vocals Evan clings to each note as if he’s being dragged along the bass clef violently by the rest of his band mates. The lyrics don’t help him out much. The redundancy of the lyrics in each song makes you check your CD player to make sure it’s not skipping. “Lion” repeats “lion” what seems like hundreds of times in a sagging, gargling voice.
So here’s what I say to War Stories: thumbs up. Nice try on a good effort. But sorry, guys, no kudos.
