Artist: Breaking Benjamin
Disc Title: We Are Not Alone
Released: 6/29/04
Label: Hollywood Records
Finding new music is usually a pretty haphazard system. Maybe someone introduces you to something, or you hear something on the radio, or you see a spiffy album cover and the disc is only 7.99. Lately, I’ve relied on XM Radio to expose me to newer artists and songs and Bit Torrent to get me some CDs of artists that our wonderful record stores here in the US decide not to carry.
So, you can imagine, I was pretty surprised to find a band through a well placed ad on Fark. I discovered Breaking Benjamin on Fark where their label had placed an ad in the upper-left-hand corner of the site. The ad was simple, and it linked to a flash page containing the entirity of three songs off Saturate their first disc. I proceeded to listen for these three songs a few times a day for the next week. Soon after, I picked up the CD (for $9.99) and it soared into my Top 5 favorite discs of the current century.
So, when I discovered it was time for Breaking Benjamin to release their second disc, I was excited and concerned at the same time. The sophomore curse is very real, and I’ve seen a lot of bands come through with an insanely good first CD only to find they’ve blown their creative wad on the first album and they have nothing left to give.
The first single off the disc, So Cold, appeared also on the Hellboy soundtrack. It gave me a moment of being concerned for the band. It rarely leads anywhere good when a band, on their second album, decides to completely switch up their sound and go a different direction. The first thing I thought of when I heard this single was, “God, don’t tell me they’re going for a Tool sound on this album. There’s already a band that does this sound, and that do it well.†So Cold has that mellow yet heavy quality that ‘s present on almost every Tool song. Conveniently enough, there are two versions of this video… one which you can find on AOL which must be based on the Hellboy movie, and the other on Launch. The version from AOL is the one I saw first, and even the VIDEO was Tool-like (read: creepy).
However, Tool-sounding or not, it was a fantastic lead-off single. It quickly jumped onto my favorite songs of this winter list and found its way as the leadoff track on a couple of Daniels’ Car Jams (also referred to as the “Yeah Dogg†series).
Needless to say, after three or four months with just this song, I was ready to finally sink my teeth into the whole disc, Tool sound or no Tool sound. So, when I finally managed to score an advanced copy… I was ready.
Let me just say: f*ck the sophomore curse, this CD is a home run.
Clocking in at just about 40 minutes, BB does on this disk what they did on the last one. They make 11 songs that hit just about every end of the spectrum… the first track is So Cold, the lead off single, and a perfect way to open the album. The beginning starts off mellow and creepy and it goes into the heavy chorus and ends on a heavy note, perfect to get you fired up into 40 minutes of Rock n Roll goodness.
The next 4 songs follow the BB rock format… some good power chord rock with Ben Burnley’s excellent songwriting talents backing it up. Firefly and Simple Design are the highlights of this four song stretch. These are in the category of: shit you hope you have when you need to open it up on the Interstate songs.
After the stretch of hard rock, they give you some time to catch your breath with the semi-slow and melodic Forget It and Sooner or Later. These two songs really help to show the band’s range. After four hard rock songs, they have two mellow ones stuck right together, and you barely notice anything amiss. A band that can effortlessly switch between performing, and writing, both fast and slow songs is a skill that is easily overlooked. Most bands can do one, but fail miserably when trying to do the other. Live, for example, does not do fast nearly as well as they do slow. Metallica, for example, does not do slow nearly as well as they do fast. These guys have it down.
After the two mellow tracks, you come into the song that has spent nearly two months at the top Widro’s personal chart, Breakdown. This is another excellent rock song to remind you that, shit, you’re listening to a rock band and they have some more rock to do before they’re done. The three songs go up in levels of rockingness and they close the heavy stuff with Believe which reminds of a Staind song circa the Dysfunction years… with lowered guitars and screechy choruses.
The disc closes up similar to the last album with a very slow and melodic tune called Rain which, I think, features the guy from Our Lady Peace. They seem to like to bring people down from their adrenaline highs at the end of their albums. This is an acoustic track which is as good a way to close an album as any.
I was very impressed by this album. They didn’t fall into any of the traps that bands seem to on second albums. The traps being, for example, 1) sucking, 2) making the same album again, or 3) changing direction entirely. This CD manages to be the same band, but 11 entirely new songs with not one reminding me of the last album. It’s also an effort in stretching what the band can do, and it works perfectly.
Or, as Widro said: “Me and the new Breaking Benjamin CD got married last night. I’m sorry, but you can’t have it.â€
So, this CD, or “Mrs Widro†as the staff is calling it now, comes with my highest possible recommendation. Go out and buy two. One for yourself, and one for infidels who don’t know who Breaking Benjamin yet.
Keep an eye on these guys, they’ll be around for awhile.
