*From IGN Music - November 7th, 2003*

Rooney

SoCal band's self-titled debut unleashes intricate pop songs.

While the band Rooney may not exactly be a household name yet, if you've ever played Tiger Woods PGA Tour 2004 there's a good chance that you've heard the band's hit single "Blueside." However, there is much more to this band and their debut album than one good song on a video game soundtrack. Rooney takes the no-nonsense "new rock" vibe featured by many of the "it" bands that are so popular at the moment and mixes it up with the synth and keyboard driven pop sound of bands like The Rentals, The Cars and Weezer. In fact, frontman/guitarist Robert Carmine's vocals remind me a little bit of Rivers Cuomo, so much so that the album itself could almost be perceived by uninformed casual listener as more new material from Weezer (keep in mind that I'm not saying that's a bad thing, though.

The album starts off with the aforementioned "Blueside," followed by the guitar driven, neo psychedelic SoCal sunny pop of "Stay Away." But by the time the third track hits, fans of such timeless pop classics as "Blue Moon" and "Earth Angel" (and even to a certain extent more modern songs like MxPx's "GSF") will no doubt have something to rejoice about upon hearing "If It Were Up To Me." It's one of those "1950s prom night" kinds of songs. And the driving 6/8 time signature not only makes this song one you can tap your feet to while rocking your head left and right, but it will put a smile on your face, as well.

The band shifts gears, lyrically speaking, on "I'm a Terrible Person," perhaps one of the meanest songs I've ever heard disguised as a happy, poppy rock song. With lines like "I read her diary / I'm not to be trusted / I told all of her secrets / To all the guys in town / They all laugh and slap me five" one can quite effectively tell that there's not much love lost between this particular guy and girl. Perhaps it was a bad breakup gone worse? In any event this song really shines in its musical moments. The chorus is definitely one people can sing along to, and towards the end there's a nice vocal line that is matched by a warbly-synthy keyboard note-for-note. It really has a unique sound to it, and is very pleasing to the ear.

I can't begin to tell you how much I love the next song "Popstars" as it works on so many levels. The song opens up with a simple solitary guitar lead backed by subdued keyboard lines. The great thing about this is how it makes the listener absolutely certain what the time signature is, and then a hard, distorted guitar chord, accompanied by a substantial cymbal crash, comes in to tell you otherwise. The phantom cross-play of time signatures is something music enthusiasts will love. While I was listening to the lyrics, I began to be disappointed because of the line "you said bye bye bye bye bye good bye." I thought, "Who wrote these lyrics, N'Sync?" But, after reading the liner notes and listening to the song again, I was proud to finally see what this song was truly about. It's a giant middle finger extended obstinately into the face of all the bubblegum pop that has been plaguing our radios and music television stations over the past few years. There are references to Britney Spears specifically ("hey baby / you've hit me again one more time") in addition to the aforementioned dig at N'Sync. Every line of this song is a slap in the face, a punch in the kidney, a kick in the shin of the prefab pop scene, defined as "unsophisticated money machines" and "the killers of rock and roll." Preach on, Rooney; Preach on.

The band keeps the keyboard driven musicality going strong on "I'm Shakin'," which begins with an almost "toy-piano" sounding keyboard part that sounds as if it were borrowed from the soundtrack of an old movie. This synth-infused song is all about someone who is wondering just what the heck it means to be normal, because he sure can't remember what it feels like. There's a very welcome mention of the classic movie NeverEnding Story, which is kind of cool in a nostalgic sort of way, but this song eventually begins to grate on the nerves a little bit. There is a lot of "sh sh sh" vocal repetition in front of almost every word in the song that begins with the letters "S" and "H" and given that the title is "I'm Shakin'" they say those consonant sounds an awful lot. The end result is that it sounds like the lead singer has a stuttering affliction. It's not a bad song, mind you, but it's just not a great one, either.

Remember how I told you that Robert Carmine's vocals tend to sound like Rivers Cuomo? Take a listen to "Daisy Duke" and you'll swear it's a new, unreleased B-side from Weezer. Crooning about Daisy Duke, it seems that Carmine has some kind of a domination fantasy about the leggy character from The Dukes of Hazzard. Or is he just obsessed with hot pants? Either way, he demonstrates one of those "I love you so much that if you reject me I'll throw you to the curb and make you bow down in front of me!" vibes throughout the song's lyrics.

From fantasies of hot pants and Southern gals the band flips into the song "Sorry Sorry," which is an interesting little number, to say the least. It's all about a guy who walks up to a girl in a bar and instead of playing it cool or using a dumb pick-up line, he apologizes to her. Claiming it wasn't him, but an alter ego, he regrets making her life a living hell. This confuses the girl, but since she digs his hair and shoes, she takes him back to her apartment where "I was forgetting what I knew I would do / Two hours later we lay on the bed and I said / I'm sorry sorry for making your life a living hell." So ladies, if a fellow comes up to you apologizing, walk away. He can obviously foresee the future. Musically, there's not too much going on in this song. It's straight, driving rock, which isn't bad, but it's nothing incredibly unique.

The Weezer comparisons eventually rear their head again on "That Girl Has Love." This track will undoubtedly remind you of many different songs by Cuomo and his associates, albeit all mashed up into one song. Carmine's vocals once again eerily mimic The Weezer frontman, as the crunchy distorted guitar notes played by Rooney's Taylor Locke is reminiscent of Weezer's lead guitarist Brian Bell's sound. As for the lyrical slant? Well, let's just say that you'll notice a trend forming here. That trend, for those who haven't been paying attention, tends to revolve around dealing with a girl or relationship problems. Looking at the lyrics, I see four out of the eleven songs that don't mention a girl. The final track, "Losing All Control," a nice ballad of sorts full of digital delay and soft, introspective lyrics, never mentions a "she" but seems to be about a relationship that needs to be restarted from scratch. Maybe we should make that three out of eleven that don't mention girls or relationships. That's a ratio common to emo bands.

All in all, this is a very nice record. Fans of Weezer should have no problem snuggling up to this CD, but truthfully I would rather have heard less about girls. Like I said before, they have a "song about girls" ratio that is dangerously close to that of any typical Emo band. Maybe Rooney just needed to get lovelorn distraction off of their collective chests so they can focus on more diverse topics on their next album. Who knows. Lyrics aside, musically there are some nice moments sprinkled throughout the album. Sure, there are a few songs that just scream "cookie-cutter rock," but they don't stick out like a sore thumb. Plus they're few and far between. In the end, Rooney is comprised of some talented individuals making very interested in watching where they go from here.

-Jesse Lord