Review: Mainly Lanes, Oomami

Mainly Lanes
Oomami

F

This record is what I imagine the end of the world to sound like. (This is what I imagine the end of the world looks like, if anyone was wondering.)

The WGTB blog may get a lot of guff about not giving out very many low grades, but it’s probably because most of the other albums deserve at least some credit for having attempted the grandiose, grueling task of making an album. Not Mainly Lanes, Mainly Lanes gets an F on Oomami even for trying. To be perfectly lucid, this is garbage. I couldn’t get through 30 seconds of any respective track without wanting to bodily hurl myself from the window of my basement-level apartment.

Why so harsh? To begin with, the lead singer’s voice is sub-par at best, and six shades of terrible at worst. We’d all love to have a voice like this guy but at a certain point reality has to set in, and most of us must realize we are meant for bad karaoke, not a record label. Mainly Lanes missed this vital memo at some point along the line, and it is truly the most distracting feature of the album. The memo about clichéd, repetitive, boring guitar progressions must have also passed them by on every single track. I even heard a violin being plucked in one song—really?

To conclude on a personal note, I value lyrics almost above anything in music. So the fact that Mainly Lanes’ lyrics are the most mind-bogglingly bogus lyrics I have ever heard, (worse in fact than a legendary song my sister and I wrote about pickled peppers many summers ago), was simply the cherry on top of the album that officially makes my list of Top Ten Worst Albums OF ALL TIME. A sneak preview, if you can bear it, from Track 10: “there once was a race of flying pygmies”––no. Just, just stop. I don’t know where you’re going, but it’s nowhere I want to follow.

IN ESSENCE: AVOID AT ALL COSTS.

Are You Kidding Me? Track: Track 10 (Monks and Crossbones)

-- Fiona Hanly

"Sweet N Flo," Mondays 12-1 on WGTB