DJ Hostettler

Crooked X

By - Jan 1st, 2009 02:52 pm

With the demise of Atomic Records looming, now’s as good a time as any to re-examine the myriad problems that have beset the music industry as a whole: downloading, the collapsed economy, and most relevant to this review, the lack of quality in most major label product. With things so tough all over, I can’t help but listen to the self-titled debut from Oklahoma high schoolers Crooked X and wonder: the industry’s in the shitter, and this is the best they can come up with?

The ten songs that comprise Crooked X’s debut sound about 14 years too late; ironic, since that’s the age of each band member. But who the hell is trying to ape Alice in Chains in 2009? Are their parents frustrated ex-grunge rockers? Songs like “Fade,” with its opening “Rooster”-style flange, and the horrifically clichéd “Rock and Roll Dream” (“I had a rock and roll dream/and I was a star/I went around the world/playin’ my guitar”— Jesus, really?) are lifted almost by the numbers from the Alice in Chains playbook, but with just enough Pantera-flavored cock-rock licks to imply that they might be closer to Alice ‘N’ Chainz (Layne Staley’s hair band before Jerry Cantrell joined him — look it up!).

How bereft of new ideas are the major labels if signing a band of teenaged Creed wannabes sounded like a good idea (what’s next, is GM going to try to avoid bankruptcy by selling more Hummers)? Maybe it sounds unduly harsh to slam a band this young, but as they say on their MySpace, “We want people to hear our music, decide what they think, and THEN find out, ‘wow, they’re 14.’” Sounds fair – Crooked X would represent what’s wrong with the music biz no matter how old they were.

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