On
the Rocking Horse Winner's debut for Equal Vision Records, the band fails to capitalize on the success that it achieved with its debut release, State of Feeling Concentration. Nevertheless, great things have been expected of this band, and this album was supposed to be the launching pad for that success. Unfortunately,
the Rocking Horse Winner's incapability of producing anything memorable or creative hurts their chances at that. Surely this will sell well, as it has occasionally catchy choruses and the lead singer also sang on the wildly successful album by
Dashboard Confessional,
The Places You Have Come to Fear the Most, but it's quite similar to the style of pop music that way too many female vocalists are already putting out. Comparisons could be made to
the Sundays,
Bettie Serveert, and
the Juliana Theory (for the pop factor). As is typical in the music business, trite, predictable pop songs will no doubt garner the band much success, yet the lack of creativity here is frustrating. ~ Kurt Morris