Rocky Votolato - Burning My Travels Clean
(Second Nature)
Sounding approximately like Dashboard Confessional meeting Sunny Day Real Estate (if Sunny Day were terribly derivative and uninspired) on Nick Cave night at the local karaoke bar, I can’t find much to enjoy in this record. Sure, Rocky’s got a nice enough voice, but it sounds so much like other folky-popsters that there’s nothing really special about it. Sort of a gruff alto but also emotive. Does that sound like anyone we know? Sure it does, it sounds like any number of the singers of the bands already on the Second Nature label (Casket Lottery, Kill Creek, Blood Brothers), as well as a host of others.
The lyrics aren’t anything special, either. Check out the first stanza from "October": "Everyone will sing songs of lost mothers / every debt will be paid in the end / lives lived will be brought back into focus / as each one loses the place that it begins." Plus, there’s a decidedly Christian element. Songs like "Holding Onto Water" and "Deep in the Earth" feel very worship-y, which is okay, it’s just something that I can’t really get into. There’s also the fact that on every page of the liner notes there is, in large font, little excerpts from the lyrics like "Take a look around. It’ll never be this way again so try to remember." I’m not going to make any bones about it: that’s such a stupid and pompous idea that no one, especially a second-rate Dashboard Confessional knock-off, should ever do it. Ever. I’m serious. It’s a billboard on a busy highway exclaiming: "Look at me! I’m intellectual, arty, and brilliant! Look at me!"
I’m sure a lot of people will like this record. Rocky’s other band, Waxwing, are big on the orchestral post-punk scene, sounding as much as they do like Sunny Day (it’s true!), so a lot of the fans of that band will probably find Rocky’s solo stuff "beautiful and haunting." I don’t. I just find it so middle of the road and unlikable that it’s impossible to listen to.
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