What's the story behind that de-vious smile?

Given that I have to stay up late tonight waiting for something, I thought I might as well do today's post.

It has been far too long since we've had some boys with guitars running around here. Luckily, the Moffatts (doesn't that name make them sound like they should be from the '60's?) are here to remedy that, as well as make up for any boy band quotas we might not quite have been filling lately. I guess they aren't a straight-up boy band, but really, if McFly are a boy band, so are the Moffatts. They're made up of four brothers, three of whom are triplets and two of whom are identical; the non-identical triplet, Dave, and the non-triplet, Scott, do most of the lead vocals. They began their music career when they were all pretty young (as in, just barely into the double digits) and started out making country music. By the time 1998 rolled around (making the triplets young teenagers), they'd decided to leave behind their old style and subscribe to a more Hanson-esque school of pop (though that comparison isn't totally apt, it gives a general idea of the switch). The following album, Chapter One: A New Beginning, was a big success in Canada and was even released in Europe and, one year later, in the U.S., with some new songs added. Their next album, 2000's Submodalities, was preceded by a documentary called Closing of Chapter One, designed to show their switch to what Wikipedia describes as a "harder edged rock flavor than typical 'boy band' fare," which really amuses me--I mean, a whole documentary about the switch? You'd think they'd gone metal or something! As the following song (the album's lead single) will show, though the album was an evolution of their sound, it really wasn't some out-of-left-field change. I will give them credit, though--the album was an improvement on Chapter One (which was good in parts), and normally the type of talk that led up to Submodalities results in the opposite. The group would go on to break up about a year later, meaning that they'd racked up at least five studio albums and a break-up all before the triplets (younger than Scott) even reached the age of eighteen. Since then, Scott formed a now-broken up band with the identical twins (sketchy) and has gone all acoustic singer-songwritery, identical twins Clint and Bob teamed up to make a duo the status of which is now unclear, and Dave came out, made it to the semifinals of Canadian Idol, and does musicals. Actually, to be honest, I'm very skeptical about one particular thing: apparently rumor has it the band broke up after Dave came out to his father, the band's manager, though Wikipedia denies that rumor, citing the "I'm sick of being seen as a boy band!" line from Scott. The former would be, as I said before and to put it mildly, very sketchy (though presumably it was more a matter of tension between Dave and his father the manager than because of the brothers themselves), and would explain why the three other brothers later formed a group together (without really doing anything; I've also read that Dave wanted to be more pop and not alternative rock, as the other brothers wanted to be, and so he didn't join them for the new band); then again, Dave has given interviews saying that the fans that saw him on tour wouldn't really be surprised that he's gay, so I have no idea what to believe. I guess, if I had to synthesize what I've heard, it'd be mainly that his coming out was something his father couldn't accept. I really probably shouldn't have mentioned it, but I'm hoping someone paying attention at the time has some insight.



Bang Bang Boom--great pop-rock. However, you can't really expect us to buy the "look at us, we're really hard and edgy now!" argument when you've got "doo-doo-do-doo"'s in the chorus, can you? Still, I love the use of nonsense syllables in backing vocals, so I approve. That's only one of the reasons I love this song, though; the song has a great sped-up bridge, accompanied by a little "ding," and, really, the verses and chorus are well-done. My one criticism would be that I'm not so fond of Scott's voice when he first takes over from Dave at about 1:37 in the song (not the video; incidentally, I think it's mainly him singing on the song "California," and I think his voice works there--just not as he sings on this song), but luckily, that doesn't last long. If you like songs by the other pop-rock artists I post about--the Click Five, McFly, Busted, Jamie Meyer--you should really enjoy this (though--and thankfully--they don't sound exactly like any of those artists; "Bang Bang Boom," for example, has this ending--sort of rock-out--that I can't envision any of the aforementioned artists doing), and if you like those artists or even if you think your taste is a little more rock, you should like the album (I'm just dying for you all to hear "California" from it, too, as well as a bunch of other songs).

I very much recommend buying the Moffatts' album Submodalities, which you can get here (physical) or here (digital), and probably their album Chapter One: A New Beginning, too. Listen to the preview clips first, though. I only recently found out about them and am sort of in love, so don't be surprised to see more raving about them.

Next up: probably music from Mexico.