Maker – Mirrors
People into raw yet melodic music that is neither hardcore nor punk nor pop have nothing to complain about these days. It seems like bands who are taking cues from Brand New keep popping up. Maker is one of these bands and they could become one to cherish. Their debut Mirrors brings everything you could want in the genre. It’s almost a blueprint for this kind of music.
I love records where the emotion isn’t only in the lyrics but also in the delivery of the vocals. And though the lyrics on Mirrors are good and full of passion I fail to have that moment where the band’s passion goes through the speakers and really hits my soft spot. Mirrors is too clean and polished to do so. I don’t want to call the sound slick, the production by Jay Maas is done by the book, yet something is off.
The good thing about Mirrors is also its weakest point, it all sounds so unbelievably good one gets the idea this band has been working on this record for such a long time and poured so much energy in it they wanted to be sure they made no mistakes. Flawless but also a bit too automatic. Maker walk a very thin line between hardcore elevator music (if such a thing exists) and just being this decent band.
I’m willing to give Maker a second chance because there’s nothing really wrong with being overambitious but for a next release I’d advice the band to take an example of Crime In Stereo and do something crazy on the next record. Because the most boring guy in class is the one who always plays by the rules. That probably is the essence of what I think is wrong with Maker, they just seem to have played by all the rules.