Questionable
The Answer
Rise
Some things in music will never die. Putty faced boybands will always sell truckloads of records to the masses, rap artists will break new ground in the field of bling and Madonna, literally, will never die. But one genre will outlast them all. Because when the apocalypse comes, only the cockroaches remain, and rock and roll will rule the world again.
A corny analysis? Corny is the order of the day when it comes to Northern Ireland’s The Answer, to whom evolution was obviously some sort of joke. It is tempting to carbon date this, their debut album, to check if it is not some lost relic from the days of the rock dinosaurs. It is not hard to spot the influences. A worrying number of songs open with what appear to be direct pastiches of classic riffs.
Memphis Water opens with a homage to Hendrix’s Purple Haze, before meandering into the laziest blues imaginable. And by blues, I mean rigid twelve bar blues, nothing more, nothing less. When it stretches out in its derivativeness for six whole minutes it certainly begins to grate. These days there is no excuse for such generic music.
Into The Gutter is a cack-handed reinterpretation of Paranoid by way of pub-rock, whilst Sometimes Your Love revolves around a riff that eventually reveals itself as Two Heads Are Better Than One from Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure. The Answer are clearly unashamed in plundering the legacies of past rock idols. Be What You Want is a pleasant enough summery ballad that can induce images of cruising along alkali flats in an open top Corvette.
Likewise, it would difficult not to enjoy Preachin’, with its soulful slide guitar and extravagant use of a gospel choir. Yet it is hard to listen to Rise without feeling like you are working at a music shop. By the time you hear yet another seventies throwback attempt to knock out Stairway to Heaven you truly will go insane, and probably put something else on instead.
1st Jun 2006