This past weekend I had the misfortune of letting my friend drag me to a show where I had to be surrounded by idiots and listen to not one, but four awful bands. I've already told you what I think of Hormones and Here Holy Spain is just too easy of a target, so let's take a look at two of DFW's “rising stars.”
Bad Design was unimpressive live, but I figured I'd give them a chance to see if they were better studio musicians. They're not. The first thing you can pick out is John Gillespe's guitar work—the same guitar work that made Dear Human too fucking annoying to not catch Gutterth's ear a couple years ago. Then the singer's vocals come in, anguished and forced like he's trying to take a shit. He'll probably blow his vocal chords out after a few more shows and I won't have to worry about a sophomore album. If not, then they can drop “Design” from their name, because clearly there isn't any.
Darstar is everything that was wrong with music in the 90s: Accessible pop-rock with no real innovation or passion that's been pasted over with somebody's misguided idea of “edge” in the form of distorted guitars, militant drums and a sexy female lead singer. If the 90s revival keeps heading the way that it is, these guys will probably be huge with the 102.1 listeners in a few years. That said, I'm gonna go ahead and write them off as a waste of time. “Fuck these stupid bitches.”
