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music
Superchick
Rock What You Got | 3 stars out of 5
Superchick breaks the silence — as it often does — of a quiet couple of months for new releases in the Christian rock market with its fourth studio album, Rock What You Got.
If you've read my reviews, you know I kind of revere album four as a signpost in a band's career. It should be settling into a professional act and revealing a mature voice after having made an initial splash, then cranking out follow-ups in the midst of hardscrabble touring. It's usually the album that indicates where the act is going.
Rock What You Got has some mixed messages.
On one hand, Superchick, fronted by sisters Tricia and Melissa Brock, has definitely refined its sound. In a genre in which a lot of sound-alike bands leave you scratching your head and saying, ”Who's that?“ when you listen to the radio, the Brocks' vocals over the scrappy distortion of guitarists Dave Ghazarian and Melissa Brock and buoyant, loopy rhythms of their backers is hard to mistake. But under producer, songwriter and keyboardist Max Hsu, that sound has not stagnated. He has slipped in an orchestrated undercurrent that can be as simple as Breathe or grand as Stand in the Rain. And the band as a whole is tight and intriguing.
But in content, Rock sometimes sounds stagnant. The title track, for instance, while catchy, still seems like a retread of Beauty from Pain's Anthem or several other empowerment sing-alongs in the ”chick“ catalog. Not that we don't like the anthems, such as Hey Hey, which wins with its tempo and grit. There are several pain ballads that also sound repetitive, particularly Hold and Breathe in the middle of the album.
This is a band that definitely has identified a group it wants to speak to: teens, particularly girls feeling like outcasts and struggling with peer pressure. That's a worthy mission, but heading into album five, hopefully the group will explore a broader range of topics to address. Superchick has a lot going for it. It would be a shame to see the band founder because it's saying the same things over and over.
RICH COPLEY, rcopley@herald-leader.com
