A Killer’s Confession/The Indifference of Good Men

Jason Savio

There is a whole lot going on with A Killer’s Confession’s sophomore album The Indifference of Good Men. The Cleveland-based quintet juggles between two main approaches with varying degrees of success: the anthemic and melodic numbers with catchy choruses, and the grungy, heavy rockers.

“It’s Not Too Late” opens the album with crunchy power chords and rolling double-bass drum licks. Initially you think to yourself, “Okay, I see where this is going.” But the following song, “Numb,” starts off with a piano melody and a borderline processed hip hop beat. On the other side of this is “Trust Me” – a major head banger if there ever was one – featuring a congested industrial rock feel with dirty guitars and effects that don’t sound too different than White Zombie. Singer Waylon Reavis’ voice even sounds as though it is manipulated to be deep and foreboding like Rob Zombie’s. Intentional? Hard to tell. 

Halfway through The Indifference of Good Men it does become easy to see where the rest of it is headed as it continuously goes back and forth between in-your-face bashers to commercially hungry hook-laden songs. The best of the former is the dark and eerie “H.C. Tits,” while the frontrunner of the latter is “I Wish,” which is actually a semi mix of the two approaches. 

Stay away from “Reanimated”. The song is a weird half-hearted attempt at a hit accompanied by another awkward hip hop beat and an off-putting auto-tune chorus. With its uneven collection of songs, The Indifference of Good Men has flashes of promise for a more balanced third album.

For more information visit: www.akillersconfession.com.

Camila Cabello/Romance

Mike Wood

Songs like you’ll find on Romance have been sung for decades now, and while Cabello is a refreshing presence on the pop landscape, the artist is not really standing out as anything more than the rest. Is this a bad thing? Not necessarily. We’re talking about Top 40 Pop, after all, so she’s doing just what she should…with a few promising signs that as the singer matures, she’ll be ready to make more of a mark with her music.

As its title suggests, Cabello’s second album tackles that most conventional of topics: love. While she has every right to muse musically on this subject the 22-year-old Cabello is not saying anything new about her own heartbreak or about learning to love herself. Been there. Heard that. She doesn’t name names, and she doesn’t veer far from convention, so skip past the ubiquitous “Señorita” (with Shawn Mendes) and listen to “First Man” which allows us to hear her thank her father for preparing her to be loved by a good man. Sure it might be sappy, but she sounds beautiful, and dry eyes for fathers and daughters are most definitely not assured.

There’s also the more ambitious “Bad Kind of Butterflies” where the singer has to let one man down while committing to another, not so sure she’s making the right choice. The song and its story plays with the stomach flips that come when bad news and good news collide, and it hints that Cabello is ready to dig deeper and offer more than just pop lite—and we want more of that. While Romance doesn’t deliver too much of this, with her singing chops, we’re thinking Cabello’s third album will be the real charm.

For more information visit: camilacabello.com.