Break and Repair Method

Milk the Bee (bluhammock)

By Rebecca Shore
Published: September 27th, 2008 | 9:01am

Let's get one thing straight: Despite what any source may claim, the Break and Repair Method does not rock. It pops. And let's get one more thing clear — there's nothing wrong with pop. The genre counts among its ranks some of our generation's most addictive tunes. But the other thing about pop music is that it has to be genius — genius hooks, genius riffs, genius buildups — or it will just fade into obscurity. For the most part the band's debut album, Milk the Bee, lacks this genius.

The Break and Repair Method is the creation of Paul Doucette, drummer for Matchbox Twenty, the extremely popular pop-rock band that rose to fame in the ‘90s with a series of easily-digested chart-topping cuts. Much of the alternative rock of that time — less driving, more poppy — had more of a place back then, as we cooled off from the angst and rage of the grunge era and transitioned into the bubblegum pop of the late ‘90s.

Milk the Bee is perfectly acceptable pop music. The lead-in track, "This City (Is Bound To Do Us In)," might be the closest thing to genius that the album offers. The violins and pianos create a bouncy melody to the commentary on the state of the modern world at war (“We get by /And we take everything we see / That is mine / Is the cry of the century”). It's the song that would have a live audience bopping up and down. "You Won't Be Able To Be Sad" is the track that seems to come closest to fulfilling a desire to actually rock, but, of course, it doesn't. "Life Gets Beautiful" has a clever lead-in that suggests something less predictable, but then employs the Matchbox Twenty formula of whittling down its rockiest segments into a massive, overly-processed hunk of unintelligible instruments — it's the universal murmur of the radio hit. The album would benefit from having less to do with Paul Doucette the Matchbox Twenty drummer, and more to do with Paul Doucette, the independent-thinking musician.

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