Okay. Birmingham, England’s Beat Union won’t surprise you at all with Disconnected. Sure, the album combines just the right amount of Clash-lite English pop-punk, dance-punk, and radio-ready power-pop anthems to make Disconnected something of an infectious catchy-as-fuck conundrum but not really a whole lot more than that. Let me explain.
The first time I listened to this record, I loved it, but listening to Disconnected (for me at least) is like eating gummy bears. I love gummy bears and I love pop punk. If you gave me a handful of gummy bears I would probably eat them all and be pretty happy about it. If you gave me a 2 lb. bag of gummy bears I would probably eat them all and feel OK for a minute or two and then feel like I had to puke. Exactly like what listening to Beat Union’s Disconnected is like. Best listened to in small doses.
My wife thinks Beat Union sounds more like Huey Lewis and The News than a punk band. I’m not making this up. What I think is that John Feldman (of Goldfinger) who produced Disconnected fucked this album up by making it overly glossy and a little too bland, but that’s kinda his thing. It sounds like he was trying a little to hard for a radio hit. He took perfectly good songs and just made ‘em a little too boring and safe to have staying power. It reminds me of what he did to the Showoff record, but that’s another story.
For all the energy Beat Union possess and the tightly wound pogo-pop they dish out, Disconnected just comes off as being played-out and generic. I blame Feldman as much as I blame the band. After seeing them bouncing around the stage at Warped Tour last weekend, I would have expected a different (and better sounding) album. Disconnected is catchy and hearing one of these songs on the radio wouldn’t be such a bad thing. But for all the positive things I can say this just feels like a bit of a retread.
MP3 | Beat Union – Disconnected Disconnected
MP3 | Beat Union – My Heart Starts Beating Disconnected
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Just for kicks, I considered checking them out when you mentioned Huey Lewis. John Feldman happened to change my mind however. THE worst producer of the 21st century, no contest.
This is a really good review. I actually haven’t gotten to hear the entire record but there’s an acoustic version of Disconnected on Buzznet and they sound just like elvis costello. it’s crazy.