专辑简介

Steve Bertrand专辑介绍：by Stewart MasonAfter the commercial failures of the Tories (an L.A. power pop band that never broke past the pop underground despite decent buzz, including performing the theme to the Christina Applegate sitcom Jesse) and the major-label misfire Avion, singer/songwriter Steve Bertrand makes his solo debut with the unfortunately titled Pain Is a Megaphone, the kind of cringingly earnest metaphor so prevalent in first-year writing seminars. Unfortunately, that's indicative of the clumsy albeit clearly deeply personal lyrics on display here. Listening to songs like "Renting a Room" and "I Still Choose You" is uncomfortably close to inadvertently eavesdropping on a way too private phone conversation, but with someone who speaks mostly in shopworn clichés. ("I feel like the shell of the man that I used to be/Won't you peel the scales off my eyes so that I can see?" Yeesh.) This would be less problematic if the songs were stronger, but the power pop energy of the Tories is clearly long past: almost all of these ten songs are dreary midtempo plodders that go on at least a minute too long. Even the two perkiest songs, "Sell Out" and "Letterbox," struggle to catch fire. Pain Is a Megaphone was most likely a deeply cathartic album to make, but that doesn't make it particularly enjoyable to listen to.