Album Review: The Composure - Strings Attached

'Strings Attached' has been three years in the making for Pittsburgh group, The Composure, and it shows. The record is extremely polished in its production, and you can tell that each song has been worked on until every part is just so. “Strings Attached” is slick beyond belief and full of little pop nuggets that are destined for radio play.

The album is a spritely ten tracks long and eight of them are your standard pop-rock affair; dripping in melody, hooks and sickly sweet vocals. Lead single ‘Stop Now, Start Again’ is a prime example. It starts with vocals laden in echo effect, something used a lot by latter-day Green Day, and then progresses into the half-hearted stomp so favoured by bands like All Time Low, and Yellowcard. ‘Stop Now, Start Again’ is also an odd choice for a single, as like a number of other tracks on the album, it’s chorus is far from memorable.

A better choice perhaps would have been ‘Hold On’, which despite being even less original, does benefit from an extremely catchy chorus and break down. That said, none of the tracks on “Strings Attached” are particularly bad. Opener, ‘On The Run’ is actually quite good. Starting with an interesting sixties style jingle and then progressing into something that sits well between Saves The Day and I Am The Avalanche musically, it is probably the albums most original track.

Later on, ‘My Mistake To Make’ sounds like one of the more emotional tracks on Yellowcard’s “Ocean Avenue” minus the violin. Interestingly, a number of the tracks do appear to include the increasingly popular synth, an instrument that none of the band is credited with playing, and actually sounds out of place most of the times it appears.

Despite moments of brightness, there is an overwhelming sense that another band has done the same thing elsewhere and done a better job. “Strings Attached” sounds very dated and could easily be one of the albums by Wakefield or SR-71, or any of those other instantly forgettable early-noughties bands. The Composure have written an uncomplex and inoffensive album; easy to get into and easy to forget.

2/5

'Strings Attached' by The Composure is available now on Modern Short Stories.

The Composure on MySpace.

Dan Issitt