We’re going to try and hit an album a day from here on out. Not a massive chore, really: a paragraph (two, three at the most) per day per album? Any chump with a typewriter and the will to power party can do that.
But I’m going to approach it from an “orderly” basis. Engage shuffle. Go with the album attached to the song that comes up. Repeat. What am I doing today? Don’t know… yet.
The problem with Queensrÿche’s American Soldier: every segment showcasing some soldier’s first-hand observations about his military experiences dwarfs, in weight as well as depth, anything the band has to say about the same subjects. For purposes of illustration, let’s take the lead-off single, “If I were King.” The opening is a soldier’s harrowing account of his best friend catching an enemy bullet, bleeding out, and dying for want of a Medivac which doesn’t arrive. The song that follows is soggy power-balladeering, full of power chords of ersatz uplift and soaring vocal melodies that desperately wish to crash down upon them. That’s right: they began with a sadly common military tragedy and reduced it to a side-one ballad from the Q2k era. I’m not sure if that’s deliberate juxtaposition which just fails, or some kind of accidental poor taste, but it’s a fine microcosm of where (and how) the album dashes itself to pieces against its own good intentions.
If you can get past these sorts of glaring missteps, American Soldier presents a decent product, sometimes good, often unremarkable. Some good songs, notably “The Killer” and (especially) “Man Down!,” but little that’s essential. Some good ideas, but none so startling they leap forth from the speakers to dazzle the listener with inner fire and boundless energy. Few surprises; fewer chances taken. If I’m being fully honest, there really are times I like what the record’s on about, but they only seem to arrive when my attention’s fully divided…
Five years on, and I’m still at a loss to explain the Tea Party’s intentions with this album. When you consider that some members greeted the album’s release by talking up plans for the next album in interviews, and that the band splintered the following year, I think we have to consider the possibility that the Tea Party were at a loss to explain their intentions with this album, too.
This much is certain: Seven Circles is a terrifying journey into the world of contemporary Canadian butt-rock, soulless ballads, and goblins. “Stargazer” is a Toyota commercial pretending to be a rock song. “Oceans,” a big-hearted tribute to a deceased friend-of-the-band, is undone by maudlin overproduction; “The Watcher” lacks any such good intentions but damns the torpedoes with double-strength mawkishness. Hell, “One Step Closer Away” even finds Jeff Martin channelling his inner Scott Stapp, for Chrissakes.
Inadvertently, “Empty Glass” is the most revealing song in the set — a heartless litany of Bowie references that climaxes with Martin repeating “We’re losing our souls” like a mantra. It’s really hard not to believe him.
