Howling Bells - Radio Wars
By Nick Manteris · 0 Comments · Leave a Comment
There were several albums in 2006 that came out of nowhere and ended up being some of the best music of that entire year. Howling Bells, the debut from the Australian four-piece indie band of the same name, was one of those albums, but, unfortunately, the second time is not a charm. The other bands from 2006 fared much better on their second albums…Favourite Worst Nightmare by Arctic Monkeys, The Odd Couple by Gnarls Barkley, Donkey by CSS, Couples by The Long Blondes, It's Not Me, It's You by Lily Allen and Consolers of the Lonely by The Raconteurs were all much better albums than their debuts. The chance that so many new artists from the same year would produce second albums that are better than their first probably stretches the math to its limits, but instead of fighting the math like their peers, Howling Bells recorded Radio Wars, the textbook example of a sophomore slump.
“Treasure Hunt” and “Into the Chaos” are the only two listenable tracks and the rest of the album ranges from bad to worse. The repeating voices in the background can’t even help “Cities Burning Down” and many of the remaining songs are plagued by terrible lyrical choices. “Let’s be kids again / life was so simple then” is the facile backbone of “Let's Be Kids” and the “Radio Wars Theme” states, “radio wars are coming / they’re here.” “Golden Web” provides the lyrical nadir with, “you bit me / yeah, you bit me / then you ran …away / just like a spider.”
- Score
- 30%
It would be nice if Radio Wars were just a collection of songs that got rejected from their first album, but these are new songs and a new direction from the band. They’ve strayed drastically from the course set by their first release and this new creative arrangement just doesn’t work. Howling Bells showed a lot of promise with a debut that didn’t contain a single bad song and now they’ve created its evil twin…only time will tell which one of those two albums was the fluke.
