An album that illustrates a band confused as to the direction that they should be taking.
Hinder’s last album ‘An All American Nightmare’ saw the band turn a corner and showed a huge progression away from the modern rock of the debut and the enjoyable yet throwaway ‘Take It To The Limit’. Proper songs written with guile gave the material longevity whilst the improved musicianship took things up another level. The band had perhaps grown up….well almost.
‘Welcome To The Freakshow’ in essence sounds like the left-overs from its predecessor. The strip joint sleaze rock remains in the shape of opener ‘Save Me’, the Cameo-like ‘Ladies Come First’ or ‘Freakshow’ and there’s the usual foray into power ballad territory with ‘I Don’t Wanna Believe’ and ‘Shoulda Known Better’. The problem being that these songs seem like inferior imitations of what’s gone before. Add to that the fact that many of the songs feel like low impact filler - the country-esque ‘Anyone But You’ or the gentile ‘Get Me Away From You’ - and you have an album that illustrates a band confused as to the direction that they should be taking.
Hinder may want to shake off the clichés and disassociate themselves from the modern hard rock genre by daring to be different but this time they may have gone too far. Far better to stick to what you’re good at.
Mike Newdeck
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