The Cab – Symphony Soldier (Review)
Review by Jack Foley
THE Cab are a Las Vegas based outfit who seem to exist to create cheesy rock-pop that’s derivative of everyone from Bruno Mars to Maroon 5.
Their new album Symphony Soldier is chock full of appalling lyrics, light-weight rock numbers and – ultimately – forgettable Glee covers in waiting.
Produced by John Feldmann (of Panic At The Disco and Good Charlotte fame) it’s the sort of offering that is designed to appeal solely to teenage girls, all of whom no doubt spend entire gigs screaming out the band members’ names.
Yet the songs just don’t capture the imagination no matter how hard they strive to elicit feelings of euphoria.
Album opener Angel With A Shotgun, for instance, opens amid a building chorus and symphonic synths and strings before dropping cheesy lyrics such as “get out your guns, battle’s begun, are you a saint or a sinner”. If that’s not bad enough, then sample these: “They say before you start a war, you better know what you’re fighting for, well baby you’re all that I adore, if love is all you need a soldier I will be”.
The strings return for the opening refrains of Temporary Bliss, a track that so desperately wants to appeal to the Maroon 5 crowd that it’s embarrassing. The lyrics, though, are again terrible: “I can’t keep sleeping in your bed if you keep messing with my head.”
It’s the turn of pianos and finger-click beats for former single Bad, the type of song that Bruno Mars has turned into a trademark, and which Glee like to cover every other week given its sense of euphoria. Lyrically, though, it’s pretty lamentable as lead singer Alex DeLeon declares he wants a bad girl… the type who stays out late and wants to get her own way.
Coming straight after the lovelorn Temporary Bliss, in which he pines for someone not to mess with his head and offer temporary pleasures, it seems an odd choice to slip one in right away that finds him searching for completely the opposite.
The ‘crimes’ against song-writing continue throughout… whether it’s more cheesy piano-pop on Endlessly, the Mars-meets-Levine drippiness of Intoxicated, the sick-bag inducing Her Love Is My Religion or the utterly lamentable disco-pop of Grow Up And Be Kids, which attempts for something retro and winds up with egg all over its face.
All told, there’s really nothing to recommend The Cab’s Symphony Soldier once you’ve been through puberty or don’t share the mindset of an impossibly naive teenage girl.
Track listing: