One of the largest trends in melodic pop music has been writing complex, layered, sincere-sounding tunes rather than the short, catchy, verse-chorus-verse stuff we’re all accustomed to. Recently bands such as COPELAND, DEATH CAB FOR CUTIE, and DAYS AWAY have made careers out of this, with several more popping up all the time. One of the latest and pleasing bands in this bunch, HUNDRED YEAR STORM, quietly made their move to the Floodgate Records/East West family in time for the release of Hello From The Children Of Planet Earth. Twelve songs, one nine-minute track, sixty-minutes of total music. These are not numbers normally associated with bands of this nature. However, HUNDRED YEAR STORM break the common conventions with this album. While the longness of their songs is sometimes overbearing, certain ones, such as the nine-minute “The Golden Record” and the eight-minute “Pilot’s Last Broadcast,” are great examples of HUNDRED YEAR STORM’s instrumental talents. Easily comparable to FROM MONUMENT TO MASSES with their inclusion of historical sound clips and focus on tempo dynamics, these two songs are of top-notch quality. When the guys aren’t reaching for the sky, they perform in a more standard way with vocals and the norm. “Yesterday We Had It All,” “All This Time,” and “Crash And Burn” are all solid examples of the band’s rocking side with the latter sounding like an outtake from FURTHER SEEMS FOREVER’s How To Start A Fire. Other than the songs already mentioned, Hello From The Children Of Planet Earth contains many tracks in the five to six minute range. For whatever reason, many of these songs (especially “00:01″ and “Beloved”) sound as if though they were written by Tom DeLonge for ANGELS AND AIRWAVES. There’s certainly a space-driven vibe to this record as a whole; thankfully it mostly works in the band’s favor. Hello From The Children Of Planet Earth, for all of its solid points, still has many weaknesses. As mentioned, the length of the songs together is a bit much to handle even for a fan of loooong music. This, in turn, makes listening to this album with an available ear quite the task. Sure, these songs are great as nighttime background music, but you may be hard pressed to remember any of the lyrics aside from those repeated as a part of a build-up here and there. Anything more would simply be nitpicking at a band that is quite competent in the realm of melodic, complex pop. HUNDRED YEAR STORM may be too into the grandiose thing for their own good, but even with that, the results on this album are aurally pleasing and rewarding if given the extended chance it takes to get there.

Floodgate/East West

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