The Chelsea Smiles is former Murphy’s Law guitarist Todd Youth’s band. Having very little to do with his former band, Thirty Six Hours Later is an all-American album that reminds the listener more of Foo Fighters and to a lesser extent Guns ‘n Roses. It’s every purpose rock ‘n roll, with a flair of punkrock here and there. Sounds like the ingredients of a great sounding rock album, doesn’t it?

 

And well, this is another great sounding rock album. Every once in a while quality such as this gets released, and ninety percent of the time it’s the same story. Sounds great, well written and steady as a daddy. The potential to be a superb live experience in a support slot or on a small festival stage early a day. You know, like great sounding rock albums tend to do.

 

But only ten percent of bands that make great sounding rock albums use their talent and the superb recording quality that make a great sounding rock album in their advantage. Thirty Six Hours Later isn’t one of the elite. It lacks the defining element of the ten percent that make those great sounding rock albums memorable: originality. Face it, if you refrain from changing at least one thing about a concept you’re doing nothing else then either copying or in the best possible case paying tribute. The Chelsea Smiles play an array of styles, but fail to capture them all in one single song. Sounds like paying tribute to many great sounding rock albums to me.

 

To sum it up, The Chelsea Smiles are the sort of band you’d want to run into at a festival to hang around for maybe a song or three, four. By the time the band’s progressed into real groundbraking territory and you see them play for the second time five years later, you’ve forgotten you’d seen them ever before in the first place. You’d just think ‘now that’s a great sounding rock band’. Bet your ass you’d be downloading their music the same night then.