Brownsville Station - Yeah!

Big Tree Records

Brownsville Station suffer from the same major pitfalls that plague the plethora of hard rock bands on the scene today that just barely manage to crack the Top Forty: a lack of creativity.

This band especially seem to be stuck between a rock and a hard place. They spend most of the album doing imitations of the more sunshine-pop Velvet Underground songs, a job they pull off just well enough for you to be able to piece together what they're copying without it sounding convincing.

The lone VU cover present on the album, "Sweet Jane", does a major disservice not only to the song's creators but to everyone who released a cover before this one. Brownsville Station are all but dragging the song through the dirt--it's slow, yet Cub Koda serves up the lyrics in an all too sprightly manner, missing the soft resignation that is so crucial to the song and has made other renditions so satisfying (not to mention his vocal style didn't fit the song to begin with).

Cub Koda consistently passes out some of the dullest vocal performances in rock 'n roll. He doesn't stretch or push his voice, content with letting it linger in its bland register, never letting it leave its confines. The local blues cover band could perform his own songs with more passion and fervor then Koda has ever dreamed of.

Even when Koda is giving it his all (or more then the bare minimum), the songs continue to stagnate, their potential squandered by the lack of talent from their players. No one is adding their own flare to the straightforward style, keeping everything at average paces and average lengths. The few originals penned by the band are so simple they make it seem like any old meathead can pick up a pen and declare themselves a songwriter.

The most interesting songs on the record are the first two: "Question of Temperature" and "Lightnin' Bar Blues". "Question" is caustic and far ballsier then anything else on the album, while "Lightnin'" is conventional and commercial but not altogether soulless. Apart from that, you could always kick back and enjoy "Smokin' in the Boys Room" which, while still accurate, has lost its novelty in the years since its release and Motley Crue remake.

Rating: 3/5