Exies fail to deliver on sophomore album

The Exies of Los Angeles, California released their sophomore effort, Head for the Door, November 30, 2004. I say “effort” because, although there are good intentions, not much translates in The Exies’ attempt at a second album. Scott Stevens, lead vocals, comes off as a constipated Kurt Cobain who smoked one too many cigarettes after a three-day drinking binge.

The first single off the album, “Ugly” is catchy— a gritty, self-demeaning kind of catchy, but catchy nonetheless.

Stevens’s vocals begin to erode your eardrums like nails on a chalkboard as early as the fourth song of Head for the Door, “What You Deserve.” On this track’s chorus he repeats through raspy screams “You get what you deserve” which then decomposes into a mesh of hair metal guitar riffs and over rhymed choroverse. Choroverse, you ask?

Yes, I just made up the word choroverse because there is no word in the English language to comprehend The Exies’ short falls in this irritatingly repetitive song.

On track six, “Baptize Me”, Stevens pleas to be baptized. At print time, it was still unclear what the meaning of this song was intended to be, but what did come across clearly was that it is as equally unbearable as the aforementioned track.

The Exies seem to have a clear formula for each song on this record, including “Baptize Me” which is: start off soft, go hard for the chorus, soft for the verse, go hard for the chorus again – continue the hard rocking for the bridge and finish. The band simply seems to lack impressive songwriting and musicianship.

The last song on the CD, “Don’t Push the River” is another forced catchy tune that might just rise the mosh pit behavior of a 13-year-old Korn fan in the most passive listeners. This track is strikingly similar to their song “Ugly”, but not nearly as strong on the lyrical side, which admittedly, isn’t saying much.

The obligatory slow, mellow song can be found on track nine, “Tired of You.” Front man Stevens goes through the motions of singing a depressing ballad without much heart, and by the end of the song, the listener will probably be quite depressed as well, or even tempted to toss the album out of the window like a shiny silver Frisbee.

I wouldn’t buy this CD, not because I believe my ear to be highly trained and only good for listening to the highest quality of music, it’s because I don’t think it’s worth the ten bucks at Best Buy. If you’re looking for something better, go for The Exies’ first album, Inertia, which proves to be much more satisfying than this disappointing new release

The Exies’ Head for the Door, one pony out of five.