THE RIDDLIN’ KIDS “Stop The World”
THE RIDDLIN’ KIDS remind me a lot of the professional baseball player Tony Clark, who has played with the Mets, Yankees, and Tigers. You see, Clark is a big man who knows how to hit a baseball hard and far. Very far. But Clark also strikes out a lot, and has a miserable career on-base percentage. Comparably speaking, THE RIDDLIN’ KIDS have more than enough talent to write catchy, fun, energetic pop-punk songs. It’s what helped get them signed to Columbia in the first place a handful of years ago, and it’s what keeps their fanbase alive today. But alas, THE RIDDLIN’ KIDS too have a glaring weakness – and it just happens to be anything they’ve written that is mirred in a slow tempo and is passed off as “charming.” When this band records its next album, their producer should have a stun-gun on hand, ready to be used at the first mention of recording any sort of ballard whatsover. Stop the World fixates on this split-personality throughout its entirely. Slightly less than half of the album brims with fast, melodic pop-punk gems, similar to AUTOPILOT OFF, NEW FOUND GLORY and older BLINK 182 (these would be the homers, relatively speaking), and the remaining songs amount to something that I can’t describe as anything else but total crap (strike three!). Through the toneless singing, the painfully tepid songwriting, and hollow lyrics, I’d have a better time shoving my hand into a woodchipper than listening to some of these songs again. It’s plainly clear that THE RIDDLIN’ KIDS want a spot on the island of punk rock boy-bands, but the mainstream can only tolerate so many at any given point and time, and right now THE RIDDLIN’ KIDS couldn’t sound more lost when playing away from what they do best.
Aware/Columbia
