Sometimes life hands you lemons and all you can do is add some sugar to the unpleasant fruit and make lemonade.
Listening to the Florida pseudo-punk fivesome, the Washdown's album of lemons causes a real thirst for some good lemonade. Yes To Everything, the Washdown's first full-length album, is an exercise in mediocrity.
There is nothing on this album to make it stand out from any other danceable punk band's. Choppy chords, semi-singable lyrics, noisy production values and a sense of having a bad case of deja vu all work to make this just another album gathering dust on the shelf.
Hailing from Tampa, the Washdown members Michael Waksman, (guitar/vocals), Ryan Hess (guitar), Bryan Bates (bass), Heath Dupras (drums) and Phil Salick (guitar) formed with the desire to get their hometown dancing and possibly redefine some aspects of modern punk.
"Michael and I had always half joked about trying to start a danceable rock band that sounded like an old Otis Redding tape we heard in a car years ago," Hess said in a news release. "The idea was to substitute guitars for the horn parts and try to create a sort of dissident, brooding intensity. It never really materialized musically, but it was the impetus which got us moving in our current direction."
While still a terrible album, it is certainly much better than the 2002 Osmond Family Christmas Album or even Leonard Nimoy's 1993 flop Highly Illogical. There is certainly a danceable quality to the music, but it just doesn't tread any new ground. The vocals sound as if they were being sung through a megaphone, a trick that worked decently for At the Drive In but doesn't add anything here.
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Yes To Everything fails to hold a listener's attention because it's so repetitive. While it is possible to discern between the tracks, it's not an easy task since every song is so similar to the last.
Then again some people really do like lemons.
Still, Yes To Everything succeeds lyrically. The Washdown boys do have a way with words. One song, "Awful Truth," talks, fittingly enough, about a repetitive cycle, "Baby, come off of it, you know it was a bad idea./ We made our hands into some fists that were just much stronger./ I scream till my mouth turns dry. First line, same as the second line./ I scream till my mouth turns white. First time same as the second time."
While not an album that will take up serious play time at home or in the car Yes To Everything is worth a listen, if for no other reason than to see how far a middle-of-the-road band can go.
