Lifehouse - Stanley ClimbfallReview

Posted by Tom Cocozza on 09.26.2002

I’m not “Hanging by a Moment”, but after listening to this album, I want to be hanging by something…

Lifehouse’s Stanley Climbfall was released by Dreamworks records in September of 2002. Which means the second album in a row that was indirectly produced by Steven Spielberg! Of course, Jeffery Katzenberg had much more to do with this album, which is a point that will be made clear once you read my review.

Ah, I remember when Lifehouse’s first album, No Name Face came out, and three people bought it for each other in the Secret Santa where I work. I thought, “Wow, this must be a great band!” Since Archie Jacobson’s, my employer, is so kind to let us bring in our own music, I found out the truth. The album simply wasn’t that good. It wasn’t bad, it certainly was inoffensive, but it just wasn’t that good.

It is nothing, nothing, compared to Stanley Climbfall. Stanley Climbfall is a bad album. The songs are not well written. The lyrics are rather vacuous and faux-emotional, the whole CD makes me feel kind of-almost depressed (more later on that), the lead singer (Jason Wade) sounds like he’s doing impressions of mid- nineties Alternative/Grunge artists (Ah, the mid-nineties, when grunge started to die!), oh, and every song sounds exactly the same!!! Jesus Christ, there is no extreme rush to put the album out right now! Take some time, learn some new chords.

Look, I have no problem with albums trying to invoke a mood, or having a continuing theme. You could be reaching for something with your choice of songs, trying to get the listener to see your point. So your songs all have the same goal, and similar chords, melodies, and/or structures. That’s cool. Some artists do this well, to great effect (Springsteen’s Darkness On The Edge of Town comes right to mind). Some artists make a career out of one or two songs, done over again in different ways. Look at Green Day, who use three or four chords an album, or Everclear, who really have two songs: the upbeat sad one and the upbeat happy one. Even the Offspring made a career out of this, although for the most part, critical acclaim has avoided them like the plague. Every Offspring Spring song sounds like either “Self Esteem” or “Come Out And Play.” If you don’t believe me, listen to them again.

Unfortunately none of this seems to be going on in Stanley Climbfall. If Lifehouse has a point, or something they’re trying to say, I’m missing it. And after listening to the album around eleven times, I shouldn’t still be missing it. Sad as it may seem, it comes off that the reason the album sounds the same is that the bad isn’t original enough to write different songs.

Now, as to the mood of the album, you would think with thirteen tracks sounding similar, Lifehouse would have evoked, at the very least, a strong mood, wouldn’t you? Well, friends and neighbors, you’d be wrong! It’s a kind of wishy-washy, I’m depressed and whiny, feeling bleh, mood.

Let me paint a picture: It’s one of those Sunday’s when it’s raining lightly, the humidity is around 98%, and the world is gray and miserable. You canceled your plans because of the weather, and after two hours of flipping around the TV, you put in an old movie that you’ve seen twenty times before. It’s not one of your favorites, but you don’t mind watching it. You eat lunch in the living room, spill something on your shirt, and end up eating way too much. So you lie on the couch, with a stained shirt and a gorged belly, not watching the movie, with the wet gray world outside, and you start thinking about a girl that broke up with you three years ago. You are certain that right now, her life is better than yours. You know how you feel right now? Dilute by 85%, and that’s how the album makes you feel.

The only song I really thought was any good was “Sky is Falling.” They have it on the album twice, so I guess they agree with me. The second time is acoustic, which is fine, but there is no need to do an acoustic version, because the non-acoustic is mellow as is. Whatever.

The CD clocks in at 58m14s, which is a good album length at least, although I wished they filled the time with better music. Also, if you play it on your computer, you get access to a secret website! Oooh. The site has audio and video tracks with the band, talking about the album. You could guess how excited I was to find this out.

Don’t get it, try to avoid it, the good song’ll be on the radio, trust me.