Mest territory isn’t ‘Unknown’

If there were a soundtrack to Abercrombie & Fitch advertisements, this would be it.

Mest’s third release on the Maverick label sounds like a maxi-single of the very first track.

The melodies are all too similar throughout the CD, and the depth of a lot of the songs gets lost in the zippity-do-dah-like production.

Lines like “without you in my life/sleep through the day into the night/roll out of bed what can be said?/I’m living now but I feel dead,” from “Living Dead” can’t be taken seriously at the tempo of the song.

Lyrical content is wasted in a serious clash with the c.d.’s production.

Three tracks manage to break the monotony – “Reason,” “Cadillac” and “Mother’s Prayer” – all produced by Marvin Young, aka Young MC.

Young is usually a sure-shot for about two hits on any project he works on.

He penned “Funky Cold Medina” and “Wild Thing” for Tone Loc and had two hits of his own, “Bust A Move” and “Principal’s Office.”

On this current album, two of Young’s tracks were selected for single releases.

But it is “Reason,” the best song on the album, which blazes a reggae beat that does the band justice.

Lead singer Steve Lovato’s voice doesn’t even grate on the nerves in this cut, but this is not one of the singles. Go figure…

The chosen stars of the album are “Cadillac” and “Mother’s Prayer.”

On “Cadillac,” the bass lines and guitar riffs during the hook are almost too cool for the rest of the cheesy song.

But hearing the speakers bump as Lovato brags, “we’re gonna roll with the top down, seat back, rollin in my Cadillac,” makes the song endurable.

“Mother’s Prayer” is a mid-tempo song, pretty slow for these guys actually.

It kicks introspective thoughts like “I wonder if you’re alone up there/since you’ve been gone/I’ve been alone down here/she told me that I would be OK/now I don’t believe what she had to say/when she said/don’t worry and you’ll be fine/it’s only a matter of time/as she sits back and finishes her wine/she prays to the Lord I’ll be fine.”

Again, the content is too deep for the mood of the song.

Other reviews on the Chicago based group have been quite promising.

The band has actually been compared to the groups Green Day and Goldfinger.

According to Rolling Stone, Mest seasons their punk (with enough pop flavor with dashes of ska and reggae thrown in for good measure) to make it palatable to mainstream taste.

Overall, their new album is an improvement from their first album “Wasting Time” released in 2000.

The verdict: This album isn’t worth its sell price; that is unless you are into the spring break sound.

Just be careful not to mix any Coca Cola with so much pop-rock. Your head might explode.

If you’d like to check out Mest in concert, they’re playing at the Galaxy Club tonight.