This debut album from Finnish four-piece, headed by none other than Kartsy himself gets off to a reasonably promising start with 'Wicked', with heavy drums propelling an eager, edgy guitar, but 'I Believe' is simply bad 80s poppy synth rock with a dash of Mansun from around the time of their dire career-ending third album. Yes, it's anthemic, but it's also slick and bland, and things continue in this vein for significant portions of the album. There are notable peaks that punctuate the plateau, in particular the indie-punk-pop fusion of 'You Say Love, I Say Hate', but there are also troughs, such as the lip-curlingly awful soft-rock smoocher 'Lost It' and the plain painful 'Out of Control' which incorporates a mid-section based on the tune of 'what shall we do with a drunken sailor' in what sounds for all the world like a grunged-up reworking of the theme from 'Friends'.
However, the real weak aspect of 'Duty Freedom' is the lyrical content. 'Weak Inside' - a fairly heinous example of euro-rock, typified by a brightness of production and a tendency toward classic rock guitar lick cliche, but drawing additional influence from so-called 'rock' contemporaries like Paramore, and features lines such as 'Weak inside, I walk the lonely path of my head' and 'I'm healing, I'm feeling, for once I'm believing all is said and done, so I can be me!'
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I shouldn't mock, and really, I'm not being vindictive or cruel here. But - and there had to be a but - it's fair to say that cultural and linguistic differences are the main barrier to rock bands from the European mainland achieving wide-scale success in the UK and US. It simply doesn't translate.
Kartsy on MySpace
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