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The Rice Thresher
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Carly Kocurek Lifehouse's debut, No Name Face, presents a dozen average, listenable alt-rock songs. In the end, however, the album is little more than formulaic rock. Opening the album, "Hanging by a Moment" is a solid and fairly conventional song. It's followed by the beautifully musical "Sick Cycle Carousel." The third track, "Unknown," continues in the almost-mellow vein of the previous track. "Someone Else's Song" is marked by strong lyrics and tells of the singer's desperate need to find himself. The chorus features the plea, "I remind myself of someone else/I've got somebody else's thoughts in my head, I want some of my own." "Only One" showcases lead singer Jason Wade's haunting voice as he sings melancholy lyrics like "I'm up to my ankles and I'm drowning anyway." While "Trying" proclaims that "honesty is a hard attribute to find," it also proves that energy and originality are equally elusive. "Simon" follows the mellow tone of most of the album, but finds some subtle intensity and direction to carry it through nicely. The eighth track, "Cling and Clatter," is a little faster, and, for the first time on the album, Lifehouse sounds like a distinct band rather than a sedated version of Creed. "Breathing" continues this trend with its soft instrumentation and sweetly endearing lyrics like "I want nothing more than to sit outside heaven's door and listen to you breathing." Monotonous and repetitive, "Quasimodo" struggles through four and a half minutes before giving way to the soothing but bland "Somewhere in Between." The final track, "Everything," builds nicely but slowly. By the time the song springs to life at the beginning of the fourth minute, listeners may have already lost interest. While No Name Face is not a bad album, it fails to generate excitement. All 12 tracks are passable, but it's almost impossible to distinguish them from one another. Overall, the album is more likely to provide nice background music than inspire active listening. - Carly Kocurek
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