Default – The Fallout

I was asked to review this because Dan felt that he was too old to “get it”. For the record, Dan got involved because one of his readers asked for the bass tab to the song Deny which he still hasn’t been able to find.

After my first listen, I wasn’t sure that I could write a good review, and Dan suggested that if I couldn’t write this review 51% positive, then I shouldn’t write it at all. I quite enjoyed the band; I feel that they do have their pro’s as well as their con’s like any other band. I will list them throughout the rest of this review.

But first, a little philosophy…

Today’s state of music has been over controlled by the ever constant need for ratings and consumers. Magazines and some TV shows rarely care any more about their own opinions, even if the whole show or magazine is all about different views. They want something that will get them more customers, and that means producing something that will appeal to the majority. So they give them what they want. If a reviewer suggests that something is of bad quality, while the majority of people today think it is of good quality, then the reviewer will lose a large amount of business. This is why so many businessmen and businesswomen must agree with their audience, this goes for non-entertainment purposes too. Just look at Microsoft Windows. Many of the much more computer literate people tend to find Windows to be a bother, and I agree. In fact, I had one of my aunts try to convince me that Windows was a good program since Bill Gates is a genius businessman, but not a genius programmer. But since this site is not about business and more about spreading all the large aspects of music, I feel free to give you my honest opinion about this CD. This review may possibly not be to your liking, or perhaps quite the contrary.

The band Default is more alternative than their hard rock label. Many of their songs hang around the key of D and seem more like descending or ascending progressions. Every other song seems to start out with some simple feedback to get it all going, which I rather feel to be a nuisance since it adds to the lack of variety throughout the album. But the album has a good mixture of punkish songs and slow power ballads, as derived from the beats, not the melodies. The singer, Dallas Smith, who closely resembles the voice of Creed’s frontman, has that basic midranged voice. And if your not familiar with Creed’s frontman, I will give a description. It’s much more midranged, as I said, and is sung almost between the boundary of soothing/screaming yet it never embarks too much on either side. It all boils down to a coincidence since Nickelback’s singer produced the album and he sounds close to the two artists, Creed and Default.

The lyrics revolve, like most other bands today, around the love concepts with songs like By Your Side and One Late Night . Dallas also takes a very slight “gloomy” glance to all his songs such as in the song Deny. In a nutshell, Deny is about a girlfriend leaving the character, and the character becomes so upset he won’t let her back into his life.

Matched to most other bands in this genre, Default lacks variety and diversity but so did Creed on their first album My Own Prison. However, Creed did contain a good blend of songs going outside the box of the contemporary ideal’s of love and pain. The only songs on The Fallout that weren’t distorted was Live A Lie and One Late Night, while Creed and bands like Live are big participants in mellow acoustic ballads. But don’t let this cloud your vision of the band totally. Just because Default doesn’t have the element of being continually changing and flowing through the album, doesn’t mean they’re terrible. Compared to other artists in this genre, they have a much “lighter” balance to their sound.

I wouldn’t recommend buying this album however. It became bland to me after a while, since it doesn’t display a large enough picture to the listener. If you are into the genre, then I would check them out, but spending 15 dollars on an album that could mold quickly is a waste, at least to me. I like a little more variety in my music.

Rock on!