There are some artists who are extremely talented on their instruments but just can't sing worth anything. Tom Waits and Geddy Lee of Rush come to mind. This seems to be the flaw of Athens resident Attila Horvath on his new album, Bike Rock.
Horvath wrote all the songs on this album and also played guitar, drums and bass, and he sang some form of vocals (more like guttural moans) on all tracks. His sound is like a faulty imitation of Metallica lead singer James Hetfield and ends up sounding slightly like Weird Al Yankovic. In the song Road Rage
the insufferable moaning especially reaches its peak.
After the breakdown of hard rock band Akimbo, Horvath was inspired by his passion for bike riding in this solo album. His attempts at uniqueness fall short of being even relatively thrilling, however.
Though he might enjoy bike riding, the album bores the listener by the third track. It doesn't improve from there ' every song sounds the same as the others. The repetition of the lyrics and guitar licks makes the album seem so much longer than it is. On the song Rollin Down the only lyrics in the refrain are the title repeated 16 times. One would think the message had been conveyed after maybe three times ...
Then again, he's not good enough at his instruments to have any solos of his own. All the songs start well, but end up with the same melodies played over and over again. The good, hard riffs, which are enjoyable at the beginning, become an annoyance as the tune refuses to change and move on.
On the already stupidly ridiculous Fast Food Horvath's guitar is out of sync with the drums, almost like he can't keep up with himself. The first guitar solo appears in Awake Now
the eighth of 12 tracks, and is done by contributing artist John Patt, not Horvath. The solo is mediocre at best anyway.
A new instrument, the resonator guitar ' a variation on the slide guitar ' finally turns up on Invisible. Yet again, however, it is played by contributing artist John Borchard, while Horvath continues with his overplayed harmonies.
Along with his generic beats and guitars, Horvath dedicates a song to the city he calls home. Still, the lyrics make it hard to differentiate from any other city, except a passing reference to the Hocking ditch.
To complete the generic, amateur album, Horvath admits his lack of originality by thanking Justin Farkas for allowing his beat to 'Awake Now' to be stolen.
Just to say improvement is needed is an understatement. A complete overhaul and a change of topic would be more like it.
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Susan Tebben
