Review: Relient K Forget and not Slow Down
Relient K’s sixth album, Forget and Not Slow Down, follows the makeup of the band’s previous albums: heavily reliant on piano ballads with the random pop-punk anthem thrown in to change up the pace. The album starts strong and abruptly with the album’s title track unlike the ease into Five Score and Seven Years Ago, which began with an a cappella diddy. The second track, “I Don’t Need A Soul” sounds like it could fit seamlessly on the last album – almost much too much so. Is it comforting that the band hasn’t changed its sound much, or disturbing that Relient K seems to progress slower than they should?
Another static aspect of Forget is the lyrical content, largely the same on each of RK’s albums. Love, loss and finding one’s self stream through the album, but that is the kind of subject matter Relient K’s younger audience digs. The themes aren’t necessarily a bad thing, as the best tracks on the album incorporate them.
The piano ballads carry Forget and Not Slow Down. “Over It,” “This Is The End,” and “Therapy” are the best tracks on the album – all of which are carried by piano melodies. The theme of God is limited on this album (as the band still tries to push farther from the Christian Rock label that it once fell under), but “Therapy” shows that Thiessen still has the Christian backbone as “God [is] the only one who’s left here listening” while the character of the song seeks solitude for therapy.
Instead of having a song that wastes 12 seconds of the listeners life (like “Crayons Can Melt On Us For All I Care”), “Baby” wastes 45 seconds with lead singer Matt Thiessen’s over-effected vocals that might make one cringe. Instead of including these quirky tracks, Relient K should add another song that is more innovative with new lyrical content and a different sound that the band hasn’t tackled. If it fails and fans don’t like the experimentation, the worse that will happen is that the track gets skipped — much like “Baby” already will. Luckily, the following track “If You Believe Me” saves the day by being one of the few rock-influenced songs on the album, mainly because of the chorus.
Forget and Not Slow Down is a fun listen, but it’s a shame that the band keeps putting the same sort of material out there for fans. Listeners should expect more from Relient K.
Originally posted on StereoSubversion.com.