Cute Is What We Aim For – The Same Old Blood Rush With A New Touch

I’ve been reading a few other reviews for this album, and they all seem to mention how much hype this band got on Myspace and through the internet and they were all comparing the songs to the previous demos the band had released. But somehow I seem to have missed all that hype and those demos released on the internet over a year ago, so I went into the album with a relatively open mind. Because other than the odd news post here and there, and a few of my friends saying they were really excited for the release, I had never heard of Cute Is What We Aim For, so none of the hype could really influence my impression on the album. So despite a few flaws, I’m happy to say that I actually really like The Same Old Blood Rush With A New Touch.

Sure, as the name implies, Cute Is What We Aim For has some of those one liner lyrics that the mindless myspace followers will eat up and put as their MSN names; but you can’t help but smirk and see a little humor behind lines like “Style doesn’t matter when you’re on your back” or “I spend more time in front of the mirror than any gent should” or one of my favorites, “Her bone structure screams “touch her! Touch her!”” But luckily, the album isn’t only one-liners with no solid lyrical structure as some of the songs are quite well written. Like Risqué, which sounds oddly similar to Relient K, is all about an unspoken crush which many teens, like myself, can relate to. The Fourth Drink Instinct takes a look at one night stands, and Lyrical Lies just has a straight structure, even though I’m not exactly sure what it’s about.

Musically, they are very comparable to many of the scene’s upcoming emo/power-pop combinations. They start off pretty badly with a spoken introduction on Newport Living before they break into the real meat of the song. It’s a pity, because the song is pretty good, but that little spoken part throws the listener off just as the album begins. At times they sound like The Academy Is…, hell, William Beckett even lends a hand on There’s A Class For This, while at other times they sound like The Starting Line (Shaant is almost a perfect copy of Kenny Varsoli). The beginning to Sweet Talk 101 is nearly identical to that of Coheed and Cambria‘s Three Evils. On top of all of this, the highlight of the album comes from the simple fact that the young band knows enough to switch up for the form of their song from time to time. They go from high energy songs straight down to acoustically lead songs like Lyrical Lies or the piano driven Risqué or The Fourth Drink Instinct.

So the fact of the matter is, The Same Old Blood Rush With A New Touch is an entertaining power pop album- no matter what anyone says or doesn’t say. While it is full of one-liners, it works well together as a whole too. There’s really nothing to complain about here.