Good Morning Revival - Good Charlotte > Reviews > Keep Your Hands Off This Album

Author's product rating:   

Originality	Lacking inspiration
Lyrics	Mediocre
Quality and consistency of tracks	Mixed
How does it compare to the artist's other releases	Not applicable
Value for Money	Poor

Advantages:	A couple of decent tracks
Disadvantages:	For the most part the album is deeply disappointing

Recommend to potential buyers:

no

Full review

Having formed in Waldorf, Maryland in 1996, Good Charlotte are an American Pop Punk band who have to date released four studio albums. 'Good Morning Revival' is the bands most recent album and was released in the UK on the 19th of March 2007. The album was extremely well received, and in August 2007 the band went on tour with Justin Timberlake as the opening act for his FutureSex/LoveShow tour. Good Charlotte have had some strong success over the last five years and a number of hit singles which have earned them a large and devoted fan base.

When I first saw Good Charlotte on music television five years back with their video for 'Lifestyles of the Rich and the Famous', I found their Pop Heavy 'Punk' song somewhat laughable and extremely irritating. To me they seemed extremely manufactured, and therefore seeing them screwing their noses up at the lives and attitudes of the famous seemed more than a little bit silly. As the band released more and more material, my hatred for the band blossomed. In early 2005 however their single 'I Just Wanna Live' caught my attention. Once more upon first hearing the single I found it to be extremely irritating, however soon found the track lodged in my brain and took the time to download it, playing it over and over having done so. I couldn't possibly be taking a liking to Good Charlotte could I? After potentially having taken a liking to a Good Charlotte track in 2005 and avoiding investigating their music any further, fast track to 2007 and the band released the track 'The River' featuring M. Shadows And Synyster Gates from Avenged Sevenfold. Again a Good Charlotte track had impressed me, and this time I decided that I would give Good Charlotte a proper chance and purchased their 'Good Morning Revival' album.

With a minute long introduction in the form of opening track 'Good Morning Revival', we are soon launched into the album properly with the first real track 'Misery'. This is a track I have been extremely impressed with - sounding more like RX Bandits than Good Charlotte, the band here progress through a mellowed out track with an extremely chilled out vibe and atmosphere about it. It is an excellent sound for the band and suits them wonderfully with some superb Metal guitar riffs providing some fantastic interludes every so often throughout the tracks four minute duration. 'Misery' is perhaps one of the highlights of the album, however as the track comes to an end the album just seems to go from strength to strength.

Directly following on from 'Misery' is 'The River', the aforementioned track featuring M. Shadows And Synyster Gates of Avenged Sevenfold. This is without a doubt the best Good Charlotte track I have ever heard, a track in which the band replace their Pop Punk sound of old in favour of producing some straight up rock music. The rock credentials of this track are definitely helped along by the presence of the Avenged Sevenfold members here; their influence clearly apparent throughout. The vocal work of M. Shadows works perfectly alongside that of Joel Madden, with the dual vocals of the pair adding great depth which I have never known of the band before. Everything here is spot on for me, from the fine vocal harmonies right down to the booming back beat of the drums, the whole musical display is mighty impressive. 'The River' is an altogether perfect representation of what commercial rock music should sound like.

'Dance Floor Anthem' and 'Keep Your Hands Off My Girl' progress the album from here and are a further two decent tracks. Whilst 'Dance Floor Anthem' is a little tiresome and lyrically shallow, it is by no means a bad track and from here on in is pretty much as good as it gets. 'Keep Your Hands Off My Girl' is a track which is packed full of commercial endorsements; name dropping brands such as Louis Vuitton and Dior to name but a few, this is a track which sums up perfectly just why I didn't find it believable when the band burst into popularity in 2002 with a track which seemingly snubbed celebrities and their money motivation. The track is catchy enough however, and shameless designer label plugging aside is a pretty likeable track which I quite enjoy listening to.

After four full tracks it would seem here that the band have run out of ideas, the 'Good Morning Revival' album continues to play however nothing really ever particularly stands out. The track 'All Black' for instance has great potential, however repetition of some atrociously written lyrics means that it soon becomes old news and by the end of it you just feel that if you never heard the track ever again that it would be too soon. The lyrics of Good Charlotte have never been particularly ground breaking, however the chorus and verse lyrics of this one hit record high levels of bad it has to be said. The lyrics have to be heard to be believed, and for that reason I suggest you give this one a listen despite highly doubting that you'll find any enjoyment in the track.

'Good Morning Revival' is a well polished album with excellent production values, and perhaps this is part of the appeal for many and the reason why legions of devoted fans love the band so. I however am not a massive fan of overly clean production on albums for the most part, and there is just not enough here to keep me entertained from start to finish whilst listening to the album. While there are parts of the album that appeal, much of it washes over me without ever leaving much of a lasting impression whatsoever. Having listened to the album a number of times from start to finish now, I would struggle to name many of the tracks present other than those I've mentioned as for the most part I can not even remember the general tune of the tracks as they are just so unmemorable and unremarkable.

Would I recommend the album? Not really, it has a few decent tracks but not enough to really warrant the spending of money on it. Perhaps if you find it on sale particularly cheap it may be worth investing in, however even then you're probably not going to get much use out of the CD so perhaps the purchasing of it is not a massively good idea even then. Listen to 'The River' if you can, it's by far the best track the album has to offer and is well worthy of your time. For five years I chose not to listen to an album of Good Charlotte, a tradition I decided I would break in 2007 and having done so will probably never listen to an album of theirs ever again.