The Script
The Script
Sony/BMG
[Three stars]
“It’s like U2 produced by Timbaland” that’s how guitarist Mark Sheehan chooses to describe The Script’s sound, he has himself a half truth. They could well posit the ingredient of a Timbaland broth, but when slipping in U2, all they share with the iconic band is their origin in Ireland. The Irish trio also presses on hip-hop being elemental to their music, one realises that hip-hop is a forced inclusion done bleak justice to on ‘We Cry’ and ‘Before the Worst.’ The vocal stylings on verse flirt with the speedy trills attempted by the likes of Flipsyde. Though within the black man’s music they better justify themselves in R&B/Soul set against an accommodating guitar-scape. The trio has to reckon with a benchmark set by their Irish predecessors from a U2 to a Van Morrison, but they fail to bring anything phenomenal or noteworthy to the table. The Script has itself a strong and promising debut but not a memorable one. ‘We Cry,’ ‘The Man Who Can’t Be Moved’ and ‘Break Even’ might well make for mass/crowd pullers and commercial successes. But it is in ‘Rusty Halo’ and ‘The End is Where I Begin’ that The Script lets us take a peek at what it’s capable of and perhaps a side of them we would like to see more of. ‘Rusty Halo’ faintly recalls U2 in their earlier days on albums like Joshua Tree, its like U2’s not as well endowed cousin. After having eaten their hearts out on almost every track ‘Rusty Halo’ and ‘The End is Where I Begin’ offer brief respite. On ‘Rusty Halo’ Sheehan (who is credited with most of the lyricism) writes about his existential plight “Now I’m looking up the Bible trying to find a loophole/Yeah, I’m living for revival, dying for a new soul”¦Now there’s no time to shine my rusty halo.” Sheehan streams in some optimism on ‘The End is Where I Begin,’ inspired of something his mother said while breathing her last. The foundation riff on ‘If you See Kay’ sounds like a revved up pop take of Sting’s riff on ‘Shape of My Heart.’ All in all a fair job of a debut but it doesn’t make us expect much of them in the future.
