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 Recently signed to Stolen Transmission Records, Permanent Me call themselves “something significantly better” than all those other dull bands who are more concerned with appearance rather than the music. The goal of their debut full-length album, After The Room Clears, is to dissociate themselves from the generic Long Island scene with musical honesty.
The album begins with their first single, “Until You Leave.” At first, it’s catchy and fun, you’re dancing around to the music while cleaning your room, and then four songs pass by before you realize the first one ended ten minutes ago. Vocalist Joseph Guccione’s voice was stuck in my head for a while after listening, but I could not for the life of me tell which song it was. “Until You Leave” has some decent riffs, cleaned up by producer Matt Squire, but unfortunately is one of the more forgettable tracks on the album.
“Allison” is an older song taken from their EP, Yes Virginia. A love song with lame, saccharin-soaked lyrics, it’s sure to give teenyboppers everywhere a good quote to dedicate to their true love via AIM profile. After listening to this a few times, I finally figured out why it sounded so familiar. The music sounds like a bad rendition of The Ataris’ “In This Diary.”
Amid all the formulaic snooze-fests piled onto this album, there are a couple songs that definitely showed the potential I had been patiently waiting for. “Christine” is yet another track about a girl who torments the lives of innocent boys, but it gives the album an edge that few other songs on the album achieve. It is reminiscent of their past releases, before this album transitioned the band into pop-punk, complete with power chords and mediocre screaming. It is one of the more enjoyable songs on the album simply because I could definitely tell it was not a part of the previous four. “Blackjaw” shows some potential as well, beginning with a promising beat of the drum and catchy lyrics, but it all falls apart by the time the chorus comes around. The music starts to sound a bit off and I wonder who was to blame for all the instrumental confusion, drummer Mike Fleischman or guitarists Guccione and Brian Kapler.
Though most of the album was not as entertaining as I expected, it ends with “20 Years,” a definite cause for redemption. Through all the angsty, cliché tracks no pop-punk album would be complete without, this one certainly stands out among the rest. I found myself singing along with the chorus and wishing there were more of this to listen to rather than the other few sparkling clean products of Matt Squire.
Permanent Me may not be concerned about their appearance, but they may want to focus on originality more than honesty. Background music at best, a lot of the songs are pretty catchy, but I would rather an album that takes risks and tries new and different things with their music. The band definitely shows potential, but taking the safe route with superproduction eliminated the soul these songs could have had, and unfortunately that has reduced them to just another Long Island band with a dream.
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