Motion City Soundtrack: My Dinosaur Life. ( I give it two thumbs up!)

Eccentric pop punk rockers, Motion City Soundtrack put out their fourth studio album, My Dinosaur Life this week after build up of hype that left fans eager for the release. The album is their first one on the Columbia Records label and was produced by Blink 182’s Mark Hoppus, who also produced their second album, Commit This To Memory.
Worker Bee is the first song on the album, and gets things off to a great start with the suiting first lyrics of “It’s been a good year/ A good new beginning.” Even though it is the shortest of the 12 tracks, it serves as a great introduction to the album, and the bands evolved sound. The lyrics are almost like something one would find in a children’s book, with a chorus of “I’ve been a good little worker bee/ I deserve a gold star” but are almost impossible not to sing along to.
Track three on the album, Her Words Destroyed My Planet is definitely my favorite one on the album. It tells the story of going through a bad breakup, but eventually using the experience to better yourself. The song itself is reminiscent of a lot of the band’s previous work primarily that off their last studio album, Even If It Kills Me. The catchy upbeat melody paired with the vocals of lead singer, Justin Pierre make this song one to listen to over and over.
Disappear offers a change from the band’s usual happy-go-lucky sound and features a darker vibe than most of their other songs. The overall tone is completely different from anything Motion City Soundtrack has ever done, both in sound and the basic point of view. Unlike the other songs on the album where the overall message is that everything will be all right, this song expresses a doubt of that idea, and the notion that it might not be all right, and that the singer may not particularly care. The jumbled somewhat nonsensical lyrics have the sense of someone teetering on the edge, completely unsure of what move to make next and if said move will lead to improvement or disaster. The fast paced, rough sounding verses create a sort of tension with the smoother chorus, where Pierre sings “I can disappear/ any time I want to/ Time I feel you/ Shovel through my skin/ I am with you ‘till the end.”
Delirium is a macabre mix of an irresistibly catchy melody with a heavy base line and quirky lyrics based around a patient in a mental hospital. While the lyrics are still a darker version of Motion City’s past songs, unlike Disappear, Delirium still employs the upbeat sound that the band is known for. The silly opening lines where Pierre sings about a stain on the floor lead into slightly more disturbing lyrics about insects raining from the ceiling, and suicidal thoughts, broken up by a chorus of “I swim in pharmaceuticals.” The slightly monotone quality of the verse melody doesn’t at all take away from the song, and couples with the faster paced more varied notes of the chorus to create a great finished product.
Stand Too Close brings the album back out of the dark with a lighter sound than the previous few songs. The acoustic campfire vibe of the song includes a mellow guitar part, and claps in the background. Pierre sings about finding acceptance with someone special, but remaining afraid of eventual rejection, and acting stupidly because of that with lyrics such as “I have apologized a billion times/ when I’ve gone off the wall like Busta Rhymes/ And pulled a stupid stunt/ That left you thinking/ There was something wrong with me.” While the overall composition of the song is more comparable to most popular Weezer songs, it remains true to the classic Motion City sound, employing an incredibly cheerful rhythm and the quirky lyrics that make their songs great.
Overall, My Dinosaur Life definitely lives up to the hype that fans have been feeling since April of last year when the band announced they were beginning to record the new album. Motion City Soundtrack has definitely pushed the limits of their previous albums and created what may very well result in their breakthrough into the top 40 market. The album is now available thorough most major music retailers, and on the band’s web site.

Daybreakers: The trailer was better.

Amongst the torrent of vampire related films premiering lately, the futuristic vamp thriller, Daybreakers hit theaters last week, and critics fell for the film’s thinly veiled allegories of the wasting of man’s recourses. After seeing the film myself however, I felt like I had just paid $7 to sit through 90 minutes of crap that should have gone straight to the SyFy channel and skipped theaters all together.
The film is set in the year 2019, under the pretense that an outbreak of vampires has essentially led to the near extinction of the human race, leaving the UV intolerant inhabitants of the world looking for solutions to replenish their rapidly dwindling supply of human blood. To make matters worse, researchers have discovered that an extended period without the nourishment that human blood offers is causing a mutation in the deprived vampires and turning them into wild bat-like creatures that creep around in the underground tunnels, and break into suburban homes.
The main character, Edward Dalton, played by Ethan Hawke is the head scientist on a team attempting to create a life sustaining blood substitute. Dalton, unlike his fanged cohorts believes that the blood substitute will help end the hunting of humans and give the human race time to repopulate. When it becomes increasingly obvious that this will not be the case, however Dalton joins ranks with a band of human survivors on the run from the vampire military.
Here enters my favorite character in the film, Lionel ‘Elvis’ Cormac, played by Willem Dafoe. Let me begin by saying that the fact that he was my favorite character at all really says something about this film because in a normal situation Willem Dafoe scares the crap out of me. But I digress, although it is never explained why Cormac’s friends call him Elvis, he comes on the scene with some hot muscle cars, big guns, and an idea to cure vampirism all together. Thinking that the vampire cure may be an answer to their problem, Dalton tests it on himself and after a few failed attempts, his Cullen-esque yellow vampire eyes fade and he becomes human again.
Dalton then approaches the vampires he used to work for, with the help of the humans only to find that he was pretty much the only one that was not happy with being a vamp, and that a blood substitute has been developed in his absence, effectively obliterating his bargaining chip. The climax of the film is a complete cluster of random plot twists ending in a bloody vampire feeding frenzy that looks like something out of Left 4 Dead 2.
The only hope that I had during this film, that perhaps it would not be a complete waste of money was during the end battle scene. Due to technical difficulties the film suddenly looked like it was about to burn in the projector and I sat there silently hoping that it would go up in flames so that I could get a refund.
I think that overall, the biggest disappointment about Daybreakers was that it really did have potential to be an amazing film. However due to the lack of compelling dialogue, graphics that look straight out of the 90’s, and a cast of boring depthless characters, what it ended up being was a total train wreck, leading me to wonder if they blew the entire 21 million dollar budget of the film on crack and booze.
On the bright side, this movie did show me a new less horrifying side of Willem Dafoe, and it put Ethan Hawke back on my radar as an actor I might go on a date with, if Robert Pattinson, Paul Walker, and Gerard Butler all already had plans.