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By RYAN MAVITY
I really didn’t want to write Detroit-based band Pownd off as another band du jour, with the likes of Nickelback and Daughtry. After all, looking at the band’s web site reveals two of the members to look like bouncers in a Jersey Shore bar who could most assuredly could kick my ass, while the other three look like clerks at a Guitar Center.
The good news is that Pownd isn’t completely generic and disposable. Circle of Power at least reveals an interesting mix of ’90s grunge with ’80s hair metal, and at least these boys seem to have a sense of irony unlike other bands du jour like Puddle of Mudd and Staind. Pownd is better than that, not a ton better but at least better. It’s at least more fun to hear these goofs bash out power chords than it is to hear Aaron Lewis wail about his pain. The problem is the album doesn’t rise too far above the fray.
They have an arena-ready sound for sure, as tracks like “Still Bleed,” “Monster” and the requisite power ballad “Never Means Forever” show. I guess the problem is that the band is too accomplished as musicians to be bad but too serious to be completely pompous. I think that’s what Circle of Power needs, a sense of fun or at least a feeling of joy in what they are doing. You really don’t get that feeling here. The album feels like an obligation the band members must fulfill because they are musicians and don’t know how to do anything else. Where’s the sense of excitement these dudes surely must feel getting to play music for a living? I never got that sense listening to the 11 tracks on this record.
So I give Pownd credit. They are better than some of the worst that current rock music has to offer, but you wish a band would set their sights a little higher. Or at least have the wit to be worse.
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