...OK, I'm aware that doing another review of a UK hard rock band after my comments on the scene as a whole in my last review MIGHT be pushing my luck a bit with the UK readers of this blog, but I've been meaning to do this one for a while now (I even picked up my copy of the album about the time it was released), so it's time to place this album on the scales of justice and see how it balances out. Let's do this!
So, The Treatment hail (and probably kill and die...that was a terrible reference to Manowar, sorry!) from the location of Cambridge. Not exactly a place you'd expect a hard rock band to come out of: you'd probably expect a place known for one of the biggest universities in the country to have a huge prog rock fondness! While I can't confirm how large the Cambridge hard rock scene is, I do know that there is a death metal band from Newcastle who has recently released their debut album, so I guess that, if you dig deep enough, you'll always find some weird and/or wonderful band playing a style very atypical of what you'd expect. Anyway, The Treatment made a bit of a buzz when their debut came out, as they were invited to do a gig for the best up and coming newcomers (along with Jettblack and Reckless Love...who technically aren't newcomers, but hey, technicalities!). That's how I first heard about them, as I decided to pick up their debut album upon hearing about this gig. And...I wasn't impressed. Don't get me wrong, it wasn't bad, but I found myself thinking "This is what is making a buzz?" very early into the run time. I did quite like their song "Departed" from the album, but the rest of the album didn't really rub off on me. I've given it a few listens since then, but it still strikes me as being a very mediocre album, with little on it to really get me excited about these guys potentially being the next big thing. Maybe I'm being a grumpy git, but I won't say a band are going to be the next big thing unless I feel that they have the quality to back them up and, to my ears, The Treatment's debut didn't have the quality I was looking for.
So, why did I pick up their second album if I was so convinced they wouldn't amount to much? Well, I'm a persistent guy: providing a band doesn't outright piss me off with their album, I'll keep giving them a try. Heck, I bought SIX albums of Iced Earth before I really clicked with them, that's how persistent I can be! Plus, I might as well do my best to support my national rock scene, as, in spite of my grumpy rant from last time, I DO want the UK to become a major player in the rock and metal scene again. I just think too many bands are going about it the wrong way by not looking at their influences closely enough to learn all of the little tricks that made those bands so brilliant. Some of it MAYBE can be attributed to the bands being in the right place at the right time, but there is a reason that their classic albums are still so iconic and it sure as hell isn't just because they happened to be released at the right time!
Anyway, before I need to bring out the rant warning again, let's start actually looking at the album. And...well, I'd say the quality has stepped up at least a bit, but I still don't think there's enough to them for me to really start triumphing them over, say, Heaven's Basement.
A lot of The Treatment's sound can be boiled down to "AC/DC if they got a cleaner vocalist". Already, I can spot a problem with this: in this day and age, everyone who plays hard rock (not glam metal: hard rock) seems to play it in the same kind of style as AC/DC (heck, I'd argue that Airbourne sound more like AC/DC than AC/DC do today!), so you either need to be very good at the style or have a twist on it to mark you out among the crowd. A good example of the latter would be The Darkness: they could be fairly summed up as being AC/DC meets Queen, which gives them a uniqueness to the style that will have you forgiving the occasional moment of "Hey, that sounds familiar!" (although, to be fair, the fact that The Darkness have some of the most hilariously bad lyrics of any serious hard rock might win you over on that front as well...I don't think I'd be exaggerating much if I said that Steel Panther can write better lyrics than The Darkness, and Steel Panther are a parody band!). And, while having a cleaner vocalist can be a bit of a distinction, it isn't really enough for me to go "Yeah, that's a good enough twist!". I mean, if the Queen were to form a band that played AC/DC style hard rock, I'd...OK, I'd actually be willing to see that one for the comedy value alone, but I'd still say that it's not a big enough distinction to stop me from pointing out how much influence from AC/DC the band has taken.
Now, this doesn't mean that The Treatment only do their music like Airbourne, as they do try some interesting things that stop them from writing songs that just sound like unreleased AC/DC songs. A good example would be the very Western intro section to "The Outlaw" (which is imaginatively titled "Intro", although I will them credit for making it actually part of the song instead of making it a separate track...), as are the ballads "Cloud Across The Sun" and "Unchain My World". The problem is that, for the most part, none of them really become highlights on the album and don't really add anything to the album. Take the intro to "The Outlaw": while it does nicely capture the music choices you'd expect of a Western movie, it feels like a pointless addition to the track, as it doesn't really add anything to the song. "Cloud Across The Sun" comes about the closest to becoming a highlight out of those three moments, as it's a solid song that only really suffers from being very reminiscent of something you might expect to hear in the soundtrack to a romance movie (and also, for some reason, makes me think of The Beatles). "Unchain My World" also makes me think of modern Bon Jovi, for some reason...I suppose I can give them credit for trying, but, if you want to write a good acoustic ballad, I'd recommend taking some cues from folk singer-songwriters, as most of them only had an acoustic guitar and their vocals to perform their music and, in a lot of cases, did great jobs at it!
For their normal stuff, I'd say they mostly manage to get the hard rock sound nailed down well, although I do have to ask what they were thinking when they wrote "Drop Like A Stone", as it has a very unimaginative melody line that you'll have forgotten before the song ends. Aside from that, though, it's all at least good enough to say that it's enjoyable. I just don't think they have any songs that really win me over enough to put them on the level of "Departed", which is a bit disappointing.
The performances across the album are very solid. For all my ragging about their music sounding too much like AC/DC, I have to say that they are solid performers on the record. Vocalist Matt Jones is a strong singer for this type of music, but maybe could do with some work on his voice if he wanted to become a better singer for their ballads, as I think he doesn't really do them well enough to encourage the band to continue doing them at the minute. The production is a bit on the loud side (I think this is a bit louder than Spirit was), but everything is very well mixed (you can actually hear the bass without any difficulty!), so I guess that I can't complain too much about it.
All told, I think that The Treatment have a bit of a way to go before I can really start to say that they're going to be going anywhere. If they work on their hook writing a bit more and their vocalist gets a stronger voice for singing ballads, I see them potentially going places. But are they going to be topping New Device, Heaven's Basement or Jettblack in the UK hard rock scene? Well, I've never been a big fan of Jettblack, so I can say that they've at least won me over on that front, but the other two? I doubt it, to be honest. However, they've taken a step in the right direction to my ears and, on an album as notoriously difficult as the second album, that's a good sign. If they can keep making steps towards the right direction (and, if you pardon a potential egotistical moment, I reckon they could probably get there quicker by following my advice here and reading my rant in my review of Here We Stand), I'm sure that they will become a solid band that would be a fine representation of what the UK hard rock scene can provide. As it stands, they still have some work to do, but the fact that they've taken at least a step in the right direction does have me confident that they will continue to improve. You've got me interested in seeing where you go next, guys, don't screw it up!
Final Rating: 6 out of 10
If you just want to rock out, then this is at least worth checking out, as it has a few moments that will keep you interested. If you like your music with some depth or tend to get critical of music, this is not likely to be your kind of thing.
(...OK, I promise my next review won't be of a UK hard rock band.)
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