Degreed
We Won’t Belong
AOR Records
2013
Stockholm-based melodic, hard rock band Degreed took shape at the beginning of 2005 and after many years of touring with bands like T-Rex, Europe and Hagstrom, they released their debut album “Life, Love, Loss” in 2010. Now they are back with their second album entitled “We Won't Belong”. The jury is still out on whether anyone should care about that.
First of all, the band describes their music as AOR/ Melodic rock. For years now I’ve been wondering how much of a dumb-ass the corporate guy who came up with that name was. I think that we should replace the O in AOR with a B, so that it stands for “A Boring Record”. I tried to let go of my bottled-up frustration about that before I started listening to “We Won’t Belong” and I can safely say that I did.
The first track there is called “Intro” and it serves as (you guessed it) an introduction. It sounded to me that this intro was a bit mismatched and all over the place bringing to mind the music of bands like Depeche Mode and not the melodic hard rock that I was promised by the press release that accompanied the album. It turns out that this intro couldn’t be more appropriate because the whole album is a bit mismatched and all over the place. While there isn’t a bad track there, none of them stands out either. The reason for that, in my opinion, is that Degreed seem so desperate to have a hit song that they are prepared to try everything.
On the one side you have “Black Cat” and “What If”, pretty decent straight-forward late 80’s sounding hard rock tracks, then you have “In for the Ride” which starts off with a keyboard melody straight out of a cheesy A-ha song from the same decade, only to be followed by “Inside of Me” which features the vocal harmonies and musical structure which became popular by bands like Coldplay and 30 Seconds To Mars throughout the 2000’s. After that, there’s “Follow Her” and “Blind Hearted”, both of which could easily have been Alterbridge or Creed tracks. I mean there’s even some rapping right before every chorus of “Access Denied”.
Somehow the combination of all those elements doesn’t work in “We Won't Belong”, making it an OK record, but nothing to write home about. I do however hope they get their much desired radio air play.
First of all, the band describes their music as AOR/ Melodic rock. For years now I’ve been wondering how much of a dumb-ass the corporate guy who came up with that name was. I think that we should replace the O in AOR with a B, so that it stands for “A Boring Record”. I tried to let go of my bottled-up frustration about that before I started listening to “We Won’t Belong” and I can safely say that I did.
The first track there is called “Intro” and it serves as (you guessed it) an introduction. It sounded to me that this intro was a bit mismatched and all over the place bringing to mind the music of bands like Depeche Mode and not the melodic hard rock that I was promised by the press release that accompanied the album. It turns out that this intro couldn’t be more appropriate because the whole album is a bit mismatched and all over the place. While there isn’t a bad track there, none of them stands out either. The reason for that, in my opinion, is that Degreed seem so desperate to have a hit song that they are prepared to try everything.
On the one side you have “Black Cat” and “What If”, pretty decent straight-forward late 80’s sounding hard rock tracks, then you have “In for the Ride” which starts off with a keyboard melody straight out of a cheesy A-ha song from the same decade, only to be followed by “Inside of Me” which features the vocal harmonies and musical structure which became popular by bands like Coldplay and 30 Seconds To Mars throughout the 2000’s. After that, there’s “Follow Her” and “Blind Hearted”, both of which could easily have been Alterbridge or Creed tracks. I mean there’s even some rapping right before every chorus of “Access Denied”.
Somehow the combination of all those elements doesn’t work in “We Won't Belong”, making it an OK record, but nothing to write home about. I do however hope they get their much desired radio air play.