"Imitation is suicide." The words ring just as true today as they did more than one hundred years ago when Ralph Waldo Emerson penned them. Emerson, of course, meant that by mimicking trends, styles, and ideas we destroy our own potential to create greater things; we kill any hope of being better than those that we imitate. Unfortunately, it seems Seattle pop-punkers, Amber Pacific, don't read too much Emerson- at least, any interest in their own self-reliance is not evident in their music. Imitation is suicide. And the band ignores this fact at their peril.
Fading Days consists of five songs, none of which are noteworthy as each one emulates the all-too-familiar pop-punk formula, thus creating an EP completely indistinguishable from the myriads that have come before it. Simply put, Amber Pacific has written five Taking Back Sunday songs, edited out the dueling vocals/screaming, and packaged the results as their debut album complete with cliche phrases, weary vocals, and an overabundance of lyrics presumably stolen from a seventh grade kid's trapper keeper. Sure, the songs are catchy. Even I will admit that the band has written some decent hooks. But catchy riffs and accessible music are not to be confused with real substance as the former fades and the latter is timeless. Until Amber Pacific begins approaching music as a creative process and not a parody act, they are doomed to be the next in a long line of other imitators, dragging about the corpse of a trend that has been beaten to death and plagued by their own foolish consistency.
1.5/4
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