Westside Daredevils - Twilight Children

Westside Daredevils - Twilight Children
(2006, Self Released)

Knoxville's Westside Daredevils want to be your new favorite bubblegum-pop band. They've got alot going for them too; they've got three part vocal harmonies, melodious guitaristry and enough knowledge about how to put a song together to fill several books. They can indeed build a song. They can put all the parts in the right places and execute them flawlessly. Real fancy stuff too with all the frills and fun. The only problem is that is does feel like these songs have been constructed out of tried and true parts instead of being written to express a point of view.
When I say these boys know all the tricks, I mean, DAMN! If there were an MIT class about writing pop music then Brett Cassidy, Jeff Caudill and Gray Comber would be teaching it. They've got it down to a science. The problem is that the proceedings feel acedemic rather than resonant. After listening to their second album, Twilight Children, three times I couldn't readily recall a single song on it. I remembered thinking, "This reminds me of The Young Fresh Fellows or The Gin Blossoms."but couldn't really remember why. It just didn't stick with me.
Something of that may have to do with the impeccable clenliness of the album. The production is so clean as to be completely steril. Even the frequent distortion and occasional dissonance are squeeky clean, radio ready and pruned of the rough edges that would make them stand out.
Westside Daredevils have alot going on, good pop songs by excellent musicians.However there's no real identity. Twilight Children comes across like bar-bq chicken eaten with a knife and fork. The ingredients and flavor are there but it would be more satisfying if it were more messy.