Bottlecap – Bottlecap
Muther Music
-out now
3 / 5
It’s loud. It’s blasting. It’s a screaming, Swedish garage rock debut from a trio well-versed in guitar hooks and basslines. Right from the get-go, these three get down and dirty into it, with “Set Me On Fire” starting it off right. And as well that things should burn. But their execution is spotty, with their ambitious “Carry Me All the Way” feeling weak and thin, mostly in the vocal department. We love garage rock, but the problem with a lot of it is that it’s easy to make it good, and really hard to make it great. What would make Bottlecap here great? We’re going to say the biggest problem is their forgettable song lyrics: they just don’t set a scene different from any other rock we’ve come across. We want something that hasn’t been said before; party-down guitars with party-down lyrics do get old, and there just aren’t any new places these songs are going. Which is a shame, because the songs they have here are well-constructed and well-performed – that extra attention to story is what makes a good musical framework stick. Number two are the vocals: they are passable, but not extraordinary and/or atypical. The result here is a good debut, but there are so many fantastic rock and garage rock acts out there that it makes it hard to recommend a merely decent effort. We appreciate their attempt here and that poofy thing on the cover, but we’re going to suggest you guys pass on this one.
Check out their website should you so desire.