Link: The Sun Official Website
The Inside Pulse: How does a new band elevate themselves from the herd in the overcrowded alt-rock, power-pop landscape? By making the world’s first DVD album, of course! And that’s exactly what Columbus, Ohio’s The Sun did. Assembling a host of volunteers, they filmed videos for each of the 14 songs on their major-label debut, Blame It On The Youth and released it as a DVD. But are the songs worth sitting through an hour of videos?
Positives: It’s almost impossible to review the music without reviewing the videos, since you can’t listen to one without watching the other. And some of the videos are quite inventive and match up with the songs quite well. The standout video has to be “Romantic Death”, a montage of people masturbating (although you only see them from the shoulders up). “Taking the Lord’s Name In Vein” is an effective animated video which meshes well with the song’s anti-war sentiment. And “We Tried” has fun with the concept, depicting a femme fatale killing each of the band members on their wedding nights.
Negatives: Quite frankly, sitting through 14 videos can be an ass-whupping. And, since it’s in DVD format, the only place you can listen to it is in your DVD player, which eliminates about 99% of the ways folks listen to albums. It’s a nice PR move sure to garner the band some much-needed attention, since there’s really nothing here music-wise to separate them from the pack. Lead singer Chris Burney does his best Rivers Cuomo impression, but all it does is make you want to break out a Weezer album.
Cross-breed: Weezer with a dash of Harvey Danger.
Reason to buy: If you want to tell folks you own the first DVD album ever.
