You shouldn't judge a book (or CD) by its cover, but you can make an exception for Gazz (pronounced Gazz or Jazz?). The cover on this album reveals all. Just take a look at the back, where you will see a picture of the band. Jimmy and Angelia are doing the Spice Girls point, and Melle is doing the Charlie's Angel gun. If you take a look at the track listing next to the picture, you'll get some more insight into Gazz. With songs titled "High On Faith," "Rock Star," "Sex G," and "Porn Queen," you'll probably guess that the members of Gazz are aspiring rock stars and that this album is full of awesome rock music.
If you guessed this, you are correct. Gazz writes catchy alternative rock tunes and plays them well. The music is nothing we haven't heard before, but it's put together skillfully. The guitar is the strong point of the album. It's often distorted, but it is still dynamic, and changes moods and styles nicely, like in "Headlines," when it starts out acoustic, moves to electric strumming, then to distorted chords. Gazz also incorporates piano into some of their songs ("Headlines," "Rock Star"), which is a nice touch.
For the most part, the music on the album is nothing to get excited about, but it's all right. The main reason I had such a hard time making myself listen to it is that I don't like most of the lyrics, which are as prominent on the album as any instrument. The lyrics ruin any chance for me to like this album. It seems to me that some bands can get away with writing lyrics that don't make sense, are full of cliches, or are stupid, because the high quality of their music makes up for it. With Gazz, the music is okay, but it's not good enough to redeem lines like this: "Everything's gonna be okay, mother said so/still wonder if I'm insane/is something wrong inside my brain?" (from "I'm Okay"), "I don't want to see no dirty movies/I don't want to see no magazines/I just wanna get some sex from you" (from "Sex G"), and "the queen of fellatio trades her crown for a halo/and though she is gone now she'll go down on history" (from "Porn Queen"). Need I go on? Please don't make me.
Maybe Gazz could have tried a little harder to write better lyrics and the album would have been more bearable... maybe not.
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