REVIEW: Collapsing Lungs, Colorblind (Atlantic)
- Scott Williams
"Glamcore", anybody? Collapsing Lungs, hailing from sunny Florida, is supposed to be a ghetto-hardened synthesis of hardcore punk, hip hop, industrial, and metal, and too tell the truth, on paper the description seemed quite interesting. After a mind dulling listen, however, these guys come off like a bunch of suburban whiteboys looking for counterfeit street credit. Darwinism in full effect, urban strife tends to destroy the weak, but obviously misguided major-label A&R efforts can reverse the natural process. With an cellophane facade that screams "POSER!", the five-track EP lacks hip hop's issue oriented approach and punk's no b.s. attitude.
For good reason, Minor Threat's classic hardcore rant, "Filler" comes to mind.
To drummer Chris Goldbach's credit, his mechanical pounding is a thunderstorm in the midst of a drought. Further, production-wise, the sound is uncluttered and clean, with a clear bias towards intelligible vocals. But, all rattle and no venom, Collapsing Lung's main problem is their amazing lack of anything intelligent to say. The corny lyrics are about as biting as baby formula. "Bang-bang, bang-bang, bang-bang you're dead", goes one ridiculous chorus. If that wasn't bad enough, try "I'll fuck you up; let's fuck shit up! Yeah, FUCKER!..." - my my, such an exercise in profundity... The "rapping" (ill-syncopated yelling) is worse than fellow Floridian, Vanilla Ice, who we all know can't rap his way out of a wet paper bag. Thank God Colorblind lasts but a mere twenty minutes, and pray that Beavis & Butthead never listen. They'll, uh, huh-huh, like love it, or something...
