Breakdown, followed by techno, followed by another breakdown, followed by a clean chorus and another techno interlude, and finally end with a clean chorus. This seems to be what’s liked by the major (non pop) music scene lately, and Make Me Famous certainly do not hesitate in incorporating this formula or similar instances of it into their music.
Make Me Famous are an international band from the Ukraine, having recently released their debut album entitled: It’s Now Or Never. Objectively, the album isn’t a bad one, it’s not a good one either. It’s a safety net album. The production is good on all aspects, guitars, drums, vocals are all of good quality. This album was clearly made to appeal to a mass audience. Subjectively on the other hand, I am not impressed at all with this album. Being a guitarist, I find myself writing out riffs or parts to a song, and then looking back and thinking “It’s not good enough, it could be better”. It seems that the boys in Make Me Famous don’t share that same thought with me. Most songs revolve around constant use of open notes and breakdowns, with the occasional deviation into a couple other chords for a chorus. There are occasional songs like “I Am A Traitor, No One Does Care” that does make use of a lead, which is honestly something that’s nice to hear. Their most “technical” song on the album titled “This Song Is Blacker Than BLack Metal”, is most, definitely not blacker than black metal, an obvious joke I can tell, but a bad one at that.
I have to say however, there are two songs on the album that I greatly enjoy. “In The Shadows of You”, a slower paced song that makes use of a pretty decent sounding solo. It mainly lacks vocals, until near the end where there is a ‘chanty’ chorus going on. The second titled “She Hunted Me”, also because it breaks away from their “breakdown” norm, which offers a breath of fresh air on the album. There is also a gratuitous use of techno, that just doesn’t seem necessary to me, I’d honestly like to hear more riffs in place of it. Speaking of techno there are some parts where it just seems awkward to be incorporated in, going from an angrier riff into a happy quick techno verse. An example of this is in “Quit Sleeping! It’s Nothing But A Waste of Time”. While the techno that accompanies the song in the beginning is pretty good, complimenting it, the random break from everything into a “sing along” style verse just doesn’t work well at all.
Hopefully the guys in Make Me Famous will do something different in the future, much different; because honestly this album just was not impressive by any amount. As I said, this album in my opinion, was a complete safety net album. There wasn’t really any exploration or experimentation, just something to appeal to what is currently a fad. To me, they’re just another Asking Alexandria or I See Stars, and the music ‘scene’ has enough of those bands right now. On a final note, this album is definitely listenable, but has clearly been done before. I have no doubt people will enjoy it, it’s just sadly the same music but with new faces.