When is a market saturated? Who decides when there has been enough pop-punk or rap-rock produced for the next five years and the industry just can’t handle any more? There is no gauge of how much is too much, because it’s all a matter of opinion anyway. Well, I’m here to say that the music world’s capacity for garage rock has been exceeded. The recent influx of clangy and jangly White-Stripes-esque guitar-driven bands has left rock n’ roll bland, played-out, and way too radio-friendly.
I’m sorry to The Capitol Years, but I think their latest LP, Let Them Drink, is a bit late. The 12 tracks here are indiscernible from one and other, and their motive as a band is lazy and lacking in direction. Brimming with false build-ups, tracks like “Everyone is a Skunk” lead to nothing and bring nothing to the table. Shai Halperin’s voice is numbing and almost monotone at times, leaving nothing to be desired. On the album’s closer, “Dirty Bitch,” I swore Halparin was droning the words “I like the dirty beach,” but wasn’t interested enough to care. This is the album’s truest problem; it feels like The Capitol Years doesn’t care about the racket they are making, so why should we?
The best track here is “Mounds of Money” a booming shaker rock song, reminiscent of The Sonics that should have been the opening to this album. I’ll be interested to see which song will be the chosen single. We’ll see if it can woo the rock nation as well as The Capitol Years have won over their hometown of Philadelphia.
