WTF

With Christmas just days past, it seems customary to shed some holiday spirit in the form of gifts. Here’s a holiday tip: If someone purchased Sam Champion’s Slow Rewind for you, rewrap, regift, and save your time.The debut album of rock quartet Sam Champion supports the mystery of the recording industry. With more and more bands utilizing home recording studios and the Internet providing free publicity, today’s signed band should be elite. Sam Champion is example of the opposite.

An overuse of the electric guitar, steady drumming and undefined noise create an involuntary reflex of reaching for the aspirin. The lyrical motive is unclear. It lacks any sentimentality to appear heartfelt, and while bluntness brings to mind a comparison to Wesley Willis, the humor is absent like the sun on a foggy day. The vocals are atrocious, like karaoke on a bad day after smoking a pack of cigarettes chased by a bottle of whiskey. Slow Rewind appears as a joke that’s just not funny.

If you’re lucky, the screeching noise featured in the opening to “TV Fever” will leave you deaf enough to miss the whiney attempt for country twang vocals. The only agreeable track, “Texas Song,” is so due to the predictable chord progressions mellow enough to allow the singer to actually sing. “Too Broke” has a strange familiarity. However, with a chorus of “I’m too broke to go get drunk,” the realization will set that it was merely your college anthem. Skip the album, get drunk, and belch a stupid song. Not only will it be more fun, but it will probably sound a hell of a lot better.