CHASING KINGS – The Current State of Our Future

“Empathy,” the opening track of Chasing Kings’ The Current State of Our Future EP, is all promise. A deep, ominous synth builds slowly out of nothing, breaking without warning into a full assembly of moody but bouncy melodies. Bass kicks lead into hand claps and ghostly-sounding mandolins, the tone from a tinny keyboard cutting through to the front and setting the stage for something great. Shortly thereafter it becomes apparent this isn’t going to happen.

For the next 20 minutes, lead singer Matt Schwartz struggles on all fronts. He comes off as a less charismatic Julian Casablancas (of The Strokes) or Hamilton Leithauser (The Walkmen), and the harder he tries to sound like them the more he ends up sounding like he belongs on the latest Muse album. It’s the sound of someone trying desperately to emulate, a voice void of any punch or honesty. The lyrics fall prey to the same trap, as Schwartz insists to the audience that he’s wise beyond his years but ends up with a grab-bag full of phrases haphazardly pasted together. When they manage to be coherent they’re as dishonest as his voice — if you’re not yet 20 and you’re writing the line, “Forget what they say/we’re still young,” that’s a red flag.

The title track is another that starts off musically interesting, a catchy guitar riff leading into a chorus of falsettos, but it falls apart just as quickly, with Schwartz’s unimaginative vocal melodies leading into poorly thought-out horn stabs.

The rest of the EP is a tailspin. “An Empty Handshake,” its low point, is an unimaginative attempt to mimic bad Coldplay ballads, complete with faux-sensitive keyboards and a slow reverb-heavy guitar melody. “This Town” leads with bland, generic power chords and then stumbles along aimlessly until it finds its way back to them. “Dark Sunglasses” rests on the lead guitarist’s experiments with the tone and pace of a specific lick, but the melody itself isn’t strong enough to hold up to the experimentation. “All My Life,” the closer, is an embarrassingly cheesy soft-rock breakup ballad with phoned-in lyrics like, “I think I need someone new/someone I can see right through.”

It’s unfair to blame the failure of the EP on one member of the band. Chasing Kings (all of its members under 20 years old) seem to have no idea what they want to sound like yet. They’re far better when they’re musically weirder, creating contrasting tones and playing around with new sounds instead of trying to replicate old ones. And Schwartz has the potential to sound good, but he has get all of the bullshit out of his system first.

There’s a good band buried somewhere in here, but after a six-song EP I still can’t tell you what that band sounds like.

(self-released, no address provided)