1. Dandruff Killer Punch 2. Harvest On A Hype 3. By The End Of 4. What You’ve Done 5. V.I.P. 6. December 7. Hanging Around 8. Autopilot Guide 9. Blunder And Polish 10. Concrete Getto 11. Party With Pollution
Dead Smiling Pirates Harvest On Hype
Dead Smiling Pirates began making music in 2006 in Copenhagen, Denmark. They say their influences are mostly pop rock and punk bands such as Foo Fighters, Linkin Park, and Paramore. It’s not hard to hear those influences amidst the driving rock sound and catchy guitar playing.
I have to say, their name is their biggest allure for me. I think they chose a great band name. This album’s name, however, is not as impressive. It’s not a bad name for an album, but it doesn’t instantly catch your ear the way the band name does. Neither is the album cover much to talk about as well–there’s just nothing special about it.
Thankfully, the music itself has moments of brilliance to counteract this blandness. Harvest On A Hype is, as a whole, a decent collection of rock songs. “Dandruff Killer Punch,” I think, is a great song title because it isn’t some cliché rock song title. That and the song itself isn’t half bad. “By The End Of” sounds like something you could play at a party instead of some techno and the mood wouldn’t go down one bit, even though it’s not a happy song at all. Thanks to the powerful rock guitars, it works. “December” is much of the same.
But not all the songs have that special feeling to them. “Hanging Around” sounds like a Foo Fighters rip–off; if Dave Grohl were singing instead, I wouldn’t know the difference. “Blunder and Polish” suffers the same fate, but this sounds closer to Paramore, sans Hayley Williams. “Party With Pollution” has the obligatory piano intro beginning the song that, in this case, closes the album. And once the guitars come back in on the finale, for some reason all I can think of is Dropkick Murphys. Many of these songs sound like something I’ve heard elsewhere.
I suppose it would be unfair to say that this band wrote all their songs to be the next three–minute–hit–song of the year, because I don’t know that they did that. However, I do still get that feel when I listen to this album as a whole. Music like this isn’t intended to amaze, but rather to amuse. There’s nothing wrong that at all. But this album’s amusement isn’t quite the same as the bands’ influences can manage. Either that or I’m disenchanted with modern rock. It’s a solid album, and many of the songs are good, and Dead Smiling Pirates may be a better band than a lot of similar bands I’ve heard. But I still wouldn’t listen to this very much because I wanted to.
Key Tracks: Dandruff Killer Punch, By The End Of, December
