Review: Keepsake - Black Dress in a B Movie

artist: keepsake album: black dress in a b movie label: fearless records released: 6/11/02 by: rob tatum I am not really sure how many of you have actually heard the band Keepsake, but let me tell that it is pretty hard to track down their material. I finally found their new CD. For those of you who haven’t heard Keepsake, the band was emo-core, and they played very catchy songs about girls for the most part. Most of their older material included very poppy vocals mixed with occasional hardcore screams and crazy guitar work. Well, throw half of that out the door. The latest release, Black Dress in a B Movie is about 100% emo. No more cool backing vocals, no more crazy guitar work. This CD really disappointed me. It’s 10 songs with a really cheesy drum solo at the end of the last song. The drumming isn’t terrible, but who puts a drum solo on their album?? The whole album is mellower than any of their previous releases. The aforementioned hardcore screaming really added to the prowessof the band. None of the tracks are really bad, but there is nothing left to surprise you or anything. I don’t have a favorite song because nothing stands out to me. To be honest I thought it was really boring. The lyric writing of Shane Halpern is still really cool, and it has progressed from the basic love song, to deep, thought out feelings. However, it’s not enough to entertain me in the slightest. If any of you have heard their full length right before this, The End of Sound, you would understand my perspective. Musically the band is really talented, but the guitars aren’t used to their potential at all. The bass and drums play a much bigger part in this albumthan in the past, but it needs more guitar work. Not the worst album I have bought lately, but by far the worst release thus far for Keepsake. rating: 73%/100% listen to keepsake