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Her Bright Skies

Rivals

Written by: TL on 03/01/2013 21:06:29

Her Bright Skies were once - back when they were stylised as herbrightskies - a promising screamo/post-hardcore band, aligned with the likes of Adept and Intohimo as the Swedish scene first started oozing bleak atmospheres and depraved screaming out over the European landscape. Since then however, they have become a shallow pop-rock band, shamelessly aiming their music directly at the kind of stripey-haired youngsters that worship bands like Black Veil Brides and Falling In Reverse.

Now, originally I had planned to see if I could get through this review without revealing myself as some high-minded musical elitist, but then the band went and opened their new album "Rivals" with a song called "Working Class Punx". Yes it's spelled like that and no, judging from the mood of the song it is clearly not ironic and frankly I'm speechless at the sheer stupidity of this. I can't even begin to explain why that is just too dumb, so it's a good thing that I really shouldn't need to, but still: Obviously what HBS are saying here is that they're a band meant exclusively for 'punk-rock fans' who haven't even the slightest clue about what punk-rock is.

If I could possibly look past this travesty, I might however have been able to express some measure of appreciation for the way in which "Rivals" - the band's third full length by the way - is at least efficient in its ruthless extortion of conventional teenage-rock composition. In this way, it is the kind of record which jumps from verses to choruses in that traditional, surging fashion that just has your brain hard-wired to start listening for lyrics to sing along to. Songs like "Lovekills" and "Rivals" for instance, are Linkin Park-ish in how they can sweep you along until you eventually facepalm when you realise what you're nodding your head to, so I guess if we disregard how calculated it all is, the instrumentals and production values are actually quite good.

The problem arises as soon as your brain does start to put the lyrics together, because regardless of any relatable sentiments that Her Bright Skies might occasionally be looking to convey to the youngsters they so obviously are addressing, their attitude and rhethoric are just so banal and adolescent that I must question if even high-schoolers won't lose interest sooner rather than later. Then again, bands like Falling In Reverse have loads of fans, and some of them will likely be interested in "Rivals", as may those among you who are capable of completely tuning out lyrical content when you listen to things. For everyone else though: Move along, nothing but manufactured, immature mediocrity here.

Download: Lovekills, Rivals
For The Fans Of: The Used, Falling In Reverse, Kill Hannah, Linkin Park, Lostprophets, Celina Ree
Listen: facebook.com/HerBrightSkiesFanPage

Release Date 19.11.2012
Panic & Action