In Rotation: AM Taxi / Paper Tongues

Emo’s death throes and imitation arena rock
By Troy Farah
Published on 05/13/2010 in Flag Live!


AM Taxi
We Don’t Stand A Chance
Rating: 1/5

It’s still early in the decade, so give it a couple more years before those awful, stereotypical emo bands completely die out—bands like AM Taxi. It seems this new act is riding the last wave of this tired teenage fad and that crushing surge can’t come soon enough.

As you know, emo is just punk turned inside-out. When you can’t be angry at your government, teachers or parents, instead you’re just mad at yourself. In other words, emo is punk without anything to say. Bands like this are an easy target, but that doesn’t stop major record companies from pushing this swill onto airwaves.

Dressed like half the garage band garbage on MySpace, complete with jet-black-dyed hair and fake British accents, the Chicago band’s debut, We Don’t Stand A Chance, is a melancholy collection of tunes about razors, pills and suicide. It’s a soap opera that makes “Days of Our Lives” look tame.

The album starts with tales from “Dead Street,” yet another “Boulevard of Broken Dreams” where every kid has hung-up hopes and is hooked on heroin.But really, it’s just a rip-off of the Offspring’s “The Kids Aren’t Alright.”

“The Mistake” is one of those songs for 15-year-old girls who lost their virginity to the wrong guy and are trying to make up for it by sleeping with the entire football team. So they have another cigarette, another drink, instead of actually coping with their issues.

“I am the mistake/worst you ever made” sings vocalist Adam Krier, his voice dripping with self-loathing. What makes it more disgusting is the amount of groupies who will fall for that.

Even when tracks like “Fed Up” encourage angry adolescents to fix their problems, the message is smothered with gimmicks. Krier pushes every stereotype from death to vampires to how much his hometown blows. “We may as well sleep in body bags/Living in the town was a drag.”

“Tanner Boyle Vs the 7th Grade” is just evidence of what age group this band appeals to—AM Taxi is ideal for brats who think angst is equal to individuality and complaining is equal to artistic struggle. But the band is right about one thing: gee whiz, life sure isn’t how we thought it was gonna be! Yet if all you’re doing is drowning in your sorrows, you really don’t stand a chance.

In RotationPaper Tongues
Paper Tongues
Rating: 3/5

Even if they’re not quite there yet, Paper Tongues are a new act trying very hard, almost too hard, to imitate arena acts like Muse, Queen or U2. The package is complete—superficial lyrics with a stress on chanting and an echoing emphasis on “humanity needs to join together.” There’s the hip-hop beats, the occasional rapping, and Aswan North, the vocalist with pipes like Mars Volta’s Cedric Bixler-Zavala. And most of all, their main focus is how loud and famous they can get.

Their eponymous debut is filled with scattered influences, borrowing strongly from Queen, Led Zeppelin (without much guitar) and the people-unite mantras of Rage Against the Machine. Unfortunately, Paper Tongues don’t have much identity themselves and the album doesn’t head in any clear direction.

“Ride to California” details the true story of how the Tongues raised money for a trip out west where they started their careers after a chance encounter with a well-known producer. There, another chance encounter with Randy Jackson made the American Idol judge their manager.

After that, the Tongues’ rise to fame was like taking an elevator and up is the only direction they’ve got left. So far they’ve opened with Muse, Anberlin, 30 Seconds to Mars and AFI, and it won’t be long before they’re selling out at Wembley Stadium.

The seven members definitely have strength as a group, on “Trinity” for example, where the band all seems to be fighting for the cause of the poor orphans and widows. They increasingly spread the cheesiness on thick with “Soul,” an anthem attempting to unite everyone who is “lost and needs to be found.”

They even get sentimental with Styx-style piano on “Strongest Flame” when North reminds us that love is the greatest force on earth. In case, you know, someone forgot.

Paper Tongues have gotten astronomically lucky thus far and it seems like they’re here to stay, so long as they don’t try too hard. Musically they’re talented but have yet to make anything that stands out. However, as their growing popularity shows, that doesn’t really matter.