Listener Engagement Not Required

Chicago-based Kill Hannah’s sophomore effort, Until There’s Nothing Left of Us, the follow-up to the band’s 2003 Atlantic debut, For Never & Ever, is actually the band’s fourth full-length release since it formed in 1995, and it shows. The music is well-played and well-polished, the lyrics carefully crafted to elicit the deeper emotions of the band’s target audience (presumably angst-ridden youth). The band’s American take on British modern rock has reportedly been hailed by no less a Chicago personage than Billy Corgan as “the future of Chicago rock.” So what’s the problem?Until There’s Nothing Left of Us is dead on arrival. It suffers from a listless feeling that sets in about the fourth track, the pretentiously pained “Black Poison Blood,” and continues throughout much of the album. The music is nearly inert, better as a background soundtrack than an active listening experience, with not much memorable or toe-tapping, not even the up-tempo single, “Lips Like Morphine,” which strains for anthemic stature but merely peters out.

The one song that breaks through the mire is “Crazy Angel,” with its techno backbeat punching things up. Sadly, it comes so late in the album that it barely matters. Even sadder, it’s followed by a pointless cover of “Under The Milky Way” that adds nothing to the original version by The Church.

Kill Hannah’s debut was knocked for lacking the raw energy of the band’s performances; unfortunately, the same can be said here. Still, the band manages to infuse an earnestness into its songs that, if not living up to the screamo aspects of the band’s sound, certainly qualifies them as the lesser-regarded kittencore version of same.

For palpable, raw intensity, Wolfmother’s self-titled debut album is a much better bet. For high-energy, pop in Kinky’s Reina instead. For background music to another blah day, put on Kill Hannah’s Until There’s Nothing Left of Us and veg out. Listener engagement is definitely not required.