SCRATCHING AT THE SURFACE

After the decent if rather unfocused prog metal leanings of their 1998 debut, Boston band Event released their follow up album Human condition to mixed reviews in 2001. Two years later this, their latest album to date, appeared.

While there is undoubtedly an element of sophistication on Scratching at the surface which was missing from the debut, this comes at the expense of originality. When listening to this album, I cannot help but feel I have heard it all before from the plethora of bands who ply the indie pop rock market. This could be Nickelback, it could be Green Day, or it could be the many mini-me's of those bands who appear consecutively on MTV2.

The songs are all around the 3-4 minute mark, being simplistic indie pop numbers with an element of ambition in the arrangements. The sound invariably comprises of the gruff vocals of Dave DeLuco backed by the heavy riffs of Shaun Michaud. In prog terms, I struggle to find anything of that nature whatsoever.

As for quality of the music in indie terms, I do not really feel qualified to offer any incisive commentary. It seems to me that if you enjoy music of that genre, this is a well performed and well recorded album of songs of a reasonable quality, so I would assume it will appeal to those of that persuasion.

For those visiting this site in the hope of discovering some hidden gems of prog, this album does not even Scratch the surface.