Baroque, in pop music, is a slippery term. Moreover it is an absolutely vacuous term, an obnoxious identifier for artists who “began” to use instruments that weren’t guitars as an ignorant two-fingers to the grunge and lower-fi rock of the 1990s. The term is now even more arbitrary and useless at the end of the 2000s. Specifically with ‘baroque pop punk’ - as well as bearing zero resemblance to the sixteenth-century music the term ‘baroque’ initially pertained to - the exponents of the, erm, “genre” are literally indistinguishable from those of the humble and well established ‘regular pop punk’. West country chamber trio Hermes thus set out from the starting block with minus points for this awkward self-designation.
Debut single ‘No Age For Saints’ fails to exceed low expectations. The main riff is a gratingly simple octave alternation (the same that is treated wonderfully in HEALTH’s ‘Die Slow’) and the structure and vocal melodies are sufficiently nondescript for one to forget that any music is actually playing whilst listening to it. If you can imagine Dashboard Confessional being even more shit and boring, it would resemble this.
This is not to say that this foetal band won’t eventually find a distinctive sound, and should they do so they will become perfectly fine fare for young pop punk fans, but the style is a waterlogged field and they need to be an awful lot more inventive if they wish to wade on to anybody’s radar.
I think this is slightly harsh, and going so far as to use the word 'shit' clearly does not indicate the best journalism. It's a bit of a shame really that the review just turned into a rant about whether the word 'baroque' should be applied to a music genre.
I'd be interested to see where this band have actually described themselves as 'baroque pop punk'... On their myspace is says 'Progressive / Rock / Other'.
@Mike201: Bizarre and curmudgeonly principle you have regarding profanity in journalism. This is not academia, expletives have a specific effect and their use is as thoroughly considered as that of all the other words that don't offend you.
I don't agree that one should hedge their opinions to avoid being 'harsh' either - if anything the opposite - as this is criticism not free promotion for musicians. Opinions are opinions.
Also, the use of 'baroque' is ludicrous enough to warrant that degree of attention.
@MichaelW: Thanks for calling my opinion bizarre, and to use the term 'curmudgeonly' is quite frankly insulting - and a very shit way of responding. Seeing as we are all going to be using swearwords like normal words, let me just say that I think your whole basis of half your article on one word in a press-release is shit too, press-releases tend to not be thought about too much whilst they are being written, so maybe the press release was so 'shit and boring' that you were struggling of things to write?
As a former press officer I'd like to point out that a lot of time and effort goes into writing press releases and if you think you can do better may be you should venture into that field yourself and discover how difficult it really can be!
