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2. Million
3. Best Of You And Me
4. Wake Me Up
5. Bad Habits
6. I'll Find You
7. Thank You Ending
8. Find Your Escape
9. Different Ones
10. This Holiday I did not know much about Number One Gun before this review. No songs on radio, no discussions with my fellow musicians, no notion that Tooth & Nail's roster contained such a band. So looking to the labels' website, this is what I discovered: "Number One Gun is a band that never disappoints and takes songwriting as a priority for their band," also mentioning that they "[push] the limits of what define[s] them." Cool, I thought.
What I ended up hearing was a sufficient amount of unfocused diversity. Number One Gun seems to be able to pull off many different musical styles, an amazing feat considering the "band" is really just one person at this point, but what good is style unless it can bring forth a unifying theme? Many of the songs seemed to build up steadily, only to drop listeners off at the pinnacle with no climax in sight.
The opening track "The Massacre" is one of these songs. Hook-less and musically scattered, it makes me wonder why it was chosen to commence the album. "Million," marketed as one of the project's main singles, takes a step in the right direction. While it sounds subdued and could be stronger given the lyrics and melody, it is already light years better than the previous track -- if it were up to me to decide the tracklisting, I would invert the two. With the first chords of "The Best of You and Me" came high expectancies for the first ballad of the album; I was only left bored. I cannot deny that this vulnerable track shows off the flexibility of Number One Gun, but once again, it leads nowhere and completely lacks any semblance of a peak - this rings true with many of the project's other tracks: "Bad Habits," "I'll Find You," "This Holiday" (radio friendly but nonetheless boring), and even "Thank You Ending," which sounds like an Anberlin song but lacks their fervor.
The few remaining tracks on the album are a few moments of brightness amidst much darkness. "Wake Me Up" makes for an interesting listen, with a strange echo trailing after the chorus. "Find Your Escape" exhumes the energy that we would all like to see in every one of their songs, and quoting the song, I must say that "this is the way to go." It has become one of my favorites on the album, along with the acoustic "The Different Ones," fittingly unique. It really takes a whole 180° spin from the rest of The North Pole Project and catches the bored listener unprepared.
Unfortunately, four out of ten tracks is a low percentage of greatness. Number One Gun still needs to find a niche in the ever-shifting music industry, and a fine place to begin improvement would be realizing that truly good music brings listeners to a place unexplored before the experience. In the downpour of rock acts the world is witnessing now, Number One Gun is but another raindrop... and not yet one that causes a ripple of change.
- Clem
Disclaimer: This review is based solely on the opinions of it's reviewer and is rated on how that reviewer enjoyed the content.
