Brett Gleason makes mediocre ‘Dissonance’

By: Larissa Gula / Staff Writer

Posted on 20. Nov, 2009 in Magazine

Brett Gleason

The Dissonance

Label: Fluxure Advanced Motion Media, Inc.

Rocks Like: A grown-up Backstreet Boy

Grade: C-

Brett Gleason was spot-on in naming his new EP The Dissonance.

The album is inharmonious and tense in composition and style.

The entire album revolves around taking acoustics and revamping them into electronic keyboard mixes. It’s an interesting — if not necessarily good — idea, but it’s done poorly. The end result sounds unnatural and forced.

There is no accurate way to describe the music. Is it electronic? A failed attempt at rock? Maybe both?

The vocals seem to get a bit of a makeover through the synthesizer, making the overall feeling of the album even more unnatural.

The vocals are average, striving to hit the notes rather than convey any emotion. And where’s the emotion and passion within this melting pot?

With lyrics like, “Nothing comes when you need it to / When one thing goes wrong here, what I often do / Give up the hope to achieve it,” this isn’t exactly uplifting music.

But with the lack of emotion, these lyrics are just bland. If the lyrics have to be depressing, the vocals should be emotionally depressing to match.

Nothing on this album seems to mix well, and with its separate components clashing, it looks like the album is the one that’s “Futile & Fooled.”