Boy, MC, bet you were wondering when someone was going to put up a review.
Well, wait no longer because here's mine.
So, Beautiful Midnight is definitely close to Pearl Jam than Limp Bizkit thankfully. In fact, I'd go as far to say there is a bit of a Pearl Jam influence. They do sound a bit generic though as Alternative, by 1999, was beginning to fade a little bit. I'm from Baltimore and WHFS was the top station in the US for alternative rock in the nineties. Alas, they are no more. Last I checked, it's now a Mexican music station.
Anyway, the album starts off decently enough with Giant. It's good enough that you're willing to listen to the rest of the album, an album that spawned four singles by the way.
One of the singles is the following track, Strange Days, a song I vaguely remember actually. It's listenable but, like the album in general, pretty generic in my opinion.
There were a few tracks that stood out for me. Hello Time Bomb caught me with its fairly dark lyrics, sad lyrics really. I Miss New Wave hit home for me as I was a teenager at the height of that genre. It's funny to think now that New Wave, along with Punk would one day evolve into what became known as Alternative. I also liked Failing the Rorschach Test and that might be my favorite track on the album.
Then there are tracks like Jenni's Song. It's safe to say Matthew Good doesn't stray far from the established sound and it's way too obvious on this track. It's probably my biggest criticism that they don't seem very adventurous- at all.
Nevertheless, it's overall a decent listen. If I was an alternative fan of the late nineties, I'd say you could do worse, a lot worse. It's very listenable all the way though even if it doesn't make you go wow so to speak. So, basically, a decent album to listen to if nothing else is available.
7/10 (The Word has spoken
)