Album: Crumbland - Should I Tell You?
When I first came across Crumbland on MySpace my first thought was Pearl Jam. And anything that makes you think of Pearl Jam deserves to be looked into in my opinion. Just the selection of songs from their debut album Should I Tell You? on their profile had me hooked already and had me craving for more. I don’t know what it was about this band that attracted me the most, probably the fact that it was something familiar and yet fresh for a Finnish rock scene where it gets quite hard to find something original after a while.
Should I Tell You? is just a perfect combination of a little bit of everything; lyrics are very passionate and daring, at times even provocative and no doubt very personal. Along with melancholy melodies and Jontte´s charming voice that on certain occasions does remind a lot of Eddie Vedder it gets rounded up into one amazing piece of work that any band could be proud to show off as theirs. Ballads are usually not the thing that convinces me to buy an album of a rock band I have never heard of before, so if they do, that just means I was convinced by the album altogether. My absolute favorite song on the album is a ballad, a song titled ´Down´; there is just so much emotion in it, that it almost brings tears in your eyes. The rest of the album also brings a lot more power with songs like Feel You, In Your Head or Little Town as well as few calmer songs, so it’s just a win-win deal – for me at least.
Verdict: In short: early Pearl Jam with just the right touch of Finnish melancholy. It´s an album that will surely appeal to a more demanding crowd, too. I recommend it.