Track three here is called "Cheese Review," and mocks the negative reviews the band got for their debut: "Bands may come - reviews may go / But 'the cheese stands alone.'" The implication is that their brand of heavy funk is original precisely because of its cheddar nature. These guys are dorks and they don't care who knows it.
For some listeners, this is as dumb as music gets. For others, they'll pump it loud and sport a goofy grin the whole time. Fuse extremely sanitized bits of Sugar Ray, Audio Adrenaline, 311, Limp Bizkit, '70s funk, Red Hot Chili Peppers, and Lenny Kravitz, paint on squeaky clean choruses and sugar-sweet harmonies of either cliched Christian phrases or awkwardly creative matchings of metaphors and pop culture references, and you've got Where I Wanna Be. The line from "Getting Away"--"I like to wing it when I sing the Channelsurfer grooves"--about sums up the thought put into their lyrics.
They've left behind most of the heavy distortion and rapping of the debut, favoring strict, bass-heavy funk and sunny guitar tones here. They're most definitely creative, highly skilled musicians, and they've got the most perfected production around. You've never heard separation of instruments done so well and vocals so clear. If you dig spic and span studio-sheen, hop on. If edginess and real-life music sounds are your bag, run away.
Highlight of the album: the three hidden tracks at the end. The first, with Guardian's Tony Palacios, is a hilarious solo-sodden spoof of spandex metal. The other two are simplistic and overly polished but relatively respectable down-tuned groove alterna-metal fests that come too late to save the album, making the bewilderingly immature bent of the majority of the songs even more of a shame. Great will be the day The Channelsurfers figure out originality is possible via intelligence and grit rather than safe cheese-rock. No holding of breath here, though.
2 tocks
Other coverage for this album
HM Magazine #77Reviewed by Amanda NelsonMost of the vocals here are rap; a little nice harmony here and there. This is the first album The Channelsurfers have made with their new singer, Aaron Scantlen, and bring us their unique sound once again. The song "God is Bigger" reappears on this album (they refer to it as "Boogey Man") and you can tell they spent a little more time on this rendition than on the one that appeared in The Mother…The Phantom Tollbooth 1999Reviewed by Steven S. BaldwinDo you remember those old sacred and secular music comparison charts? They usually offered pretty dubious comparisons, but not entirely inaccurate ones, like "If you like Journey try Petra..." Truthfully, you can't always find a neat parallel between Christian musicians and their mainstream counterparts, and that's a good thing. Hopefully, the end of time won't come before the majority of…Similar sounding releases
200040DTForty Days Tempted
2000PillarOriginal Superman
1995Imagine ThisLove
1997DC TalkWelcome to the Freak Show
1997Not the JonesesNot the Joneses
2005i_INSIDEThe Mold That Shapes You
