Release date: October 7, 2008
Label: Vagrant Records
Tracks: 12
Rating: 6
Life is Not a Waiting Room is the fourth album released by New Jersey’s Senses Fail; their third with Vagrant Records and also their third to have charted on international music charts. This record has charted at number one on the US indie charts and is something that the band members had been very much looking forward to recording after working to create and produce tighter, harder songs for their growing audience.
The outcome is a well-formed record with some excellent guitar work, solid vocals, and an altogether enjoyable sound that should fare extremely well in the pop charts.
Although an album or a band that has mass appeal to the pop charts and radio audiences can often burn out, the good thing for Senses Fail is that they have survived three previous album releases and only expanded their number of listeners.
There are certainly no technical issues with Senses Fail that show through on Life is Not a Waiting Room; in fact, exactly the opposite is apparent. The guitar harmonies on ?Family Tradition? deserve high commendation from all the band’s peers, and this single track could be one of the greatest the band has ever written.
The intensity, passion, and creativity embodied in ?Family Tradition? are not fully echoed in the remainder of the record, however, and it is for this reason that I must award a sub-par score of six out of 10.
While every other song on the album is composed with intelligence and musical flare, the problem is that the music does not stand out in any real way amongst similar bands like New Found Glory and Amber Pacific. Because of this failure to make a strong impression, I fear that the album will be well received but that the band will suffer in the long term.
There are certainly audiences for this type of pop-punk, post-modern rock in the world?millions of them?but without filling a certain niche, Senses Fail will have exactly the impression on audiences as their name suggests.
As the music industry stands at the moment, Senses Fail are part of a fading family of music that was born with Blink-182 and Good Charlotte. The major flaw in these types of bands these days is that they have managed to capture the basic pleasing sound of the genre, but failed to ignite a real, lasting spark in audiences.
