Santa Cruz - Santa Cruz

Santa Cruz cover
Santa Cruz
Santa Cruz
Spinefarm Records
2015
4.5
Santa Cruz, is a Finnish quartet, with an EP and an album, past them, that decided to release another album. Their style is a mix of classic glammed up hard rock, with some ultra-sugarcoated parts that sound like the Paramore, Rasmus and all that stuff… they call it modern rock, but in essence they play an old school, with even lengthy guitar solos, just to show off, how good their guitarist(s) are… it’s easy to like “the glammy” rhythmical parts, but as soon as they revert to their “emo” parts, sorry but the most apt description I can come up with is… “they suck donkey balls”… attempting harmonies, that have been so tuned, to actually sound “harmonic”, that it’s embarrassing (ie “Bonerfied Heroes”...)
 
The attempt to sound both, old and nu, fails quite badly in sounding cohesive, with the “hard rock” parts, coming easier… trying to target the audience that has possibly graduated Tokio Hotel (stuff like “Bye Bye Babylon” or those power ballads towards the end) or the “Jonas Brothers”/1D etc, these guys make, wimpy stuff like HIM and the like, sound like downright original, evil, mean motherfuckaz!!! (Because they keep on going about mofos all the time in the lyrics)… I won’t take it from them, that in a single album, they possibly have more emo-rock cred, than all the aforementioned bands, since they are fairly talented players. Their previous material sounds freer of these “modern” influences... although the “plastic”, homogenized production, renders the guitars, “too clean” sounding and the drums, like a bit of a bad joke...
 
Actually the theory about them, trying to get all the young, angst ridden teens that will start feeling that Tokio Hotel ain’t hard enough, isn’t half wrong. To where, the former are lame and parent safe, the latter are dirty, have swearing, and would probably sound like a ton of bricks, to the potential fan, while the flashy parts, the sing along choruses etc., might be “marketed” as rebellious, but still safe. And their demographic, is into puberty now… so… from a marketing standpoint they are a PR guy/gals wet spandexed up, dream...
 
Guess what mofos! I like my metal, even when it’s glammy with big, sweaty, hairy balls, so when you find your tiny cojones, probably sucked somewhere up your torso, so as to do all those poofy “harmonies”, you can call us and inform us on your findings. Crashdiet for 5 year olds, or Tokio Hotel for grown-ups (?), either way it’s quite lame, but with half decent “ideas” here and there...
 
It’s a shame, because with a proper production some of this material might have turned out pretty good, at best right now, as things stand these guys might get banned from Kinden gardens and fast food joints!