Published on May 28, 2004
Project Bottlecap is a five-piece from Indianapolis. This CD
lived in my CD player for many months, getting repeated listens in
a single day. With each listen, the band’s drummer, Dan, gets
better and better. Pat, the vocalist, gets more tenacity in his
vocals during songs like “Open Up Your Door” and more melodic
during the best song on the CD “New Beginnings.” Guitarists Jasin
and Brad get more impressive and . . . well, who really listens to
a bass player? <grin>
The title track gets this off to a good start with Pat running
through a litany of musical genres after declaring, “I am a better
man/ look inside my head/ see the man inside is already/ dancing on
my grave.” Later, the litany, “I will find it in the music/ in the
punk rock, the hip hop, the emo, the screamo, the hardcore, the
metal, the country, and the blues.” Leave any out?
I don’t think so, which makes this band smarter than many
others. They realize that their sounds come from many influences
and, if you listen to this CD as many times as I have, you hear
them. The least obvious are the country and blues influence. The
best I can come up with is that the songs on here deal with
relationships that have gone wrong, like the recent country song
“What Was I Thinking?” <shudder> I know the name of a country
song.
I think what gets this band above other bands in the punk/emo
genre is the ease with which this band shifts from one mood to
another and among the aggressive instrumentals, the band knows when
to tone down its message. This is most evident in “Out of Habitat.”
Pat sings, “I think that somebody’s been poking at my cocoon/ cause
I don’t seem to be developing.”
There is a strong sense of “coming out of a cocoon” on this
release. The lyrics reflect a journey in life to a world of love
and lost relationships. In “Easy,” Pat sings, “I thought it would
be easy / to let you out times (sic) backdoor / But now I’m feeling
so messed up / This ain’t easy like it was before.” Then in
“Eastside,” he sings, “Everyone around me is getting married / I
don’t even think I know what love is.”
At the same time, the band has a sly sense of humor. In “A Call
To Arms,” in a very non-threatening tone, Pat sings, “I swear if I
hear another Dave Matthews song/ I’m gonna tar out these speakers /
. . . I swear if I see another Britney Spears / I’m gonna burn down
every house I ever built.” The trick in these lyrics is that they
are delivered in laid-back fashion, without an ounce of
hostility.
The disc ends with a hidden track that concludes the CD on a
positive note. I am anxious to hear more from this band. They are
working on the next CD, according to their
Web
site.