Band Review: Constantly Misjudged @ The Seahorse Tavern - March 23rd 2011

Band Overview/Video by Isaac Thompson
Photography by Tiffany Naugler

March 23rd 2011

The Seahorse Tavern

DEVCOM Battle of The Bands

On Wednesday night we were invited by Constantly Misjudged (or CMJ) to see them tussle for the crown of Dev Com’s battle of the bands at the Seahorse. The show was hosted by Three Sheet’s Vanessa Furlong, and was judged by Josh Hogan, Scott Blackburn and Denise Tompkins.
The bands included CMJ, Chunk Audio, Alice Stops Time and We’re Doomed.

CMJ played a breakneck set that was a hybrid of rap and hard rock, complete with a high volume cover of Lil’ Wayne’s Lollipop. Their sound was full of big guitar-riffs, giant back beats and booming bass. The verses were usually rapped while the rhythm guitarist would sing the melodic parts for the chorus. The rapper even treated the audience to a free-style that was quite well done. Each member of CMJ is good at what they do, the music was tight and polished sounding and they performed with energy. The problem, for me, is the style of music these guys play.

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While they do a great job with the material they have, the genre they play is hard for me to enjoy. I’m a fan of both rap and metal, it’s when they are mixed together that I don’t usually care for it. There isn’t a lot that can be done with rap-metal that hasn’t already been done and redone by countless bands at the turn of the century. The Nu-Metal scene was so overplayed and overdone, and combining heavy metal guitar-riffs with rapping is so artistically limited that it almost always sounds no different than bands like Limp Bizkit, Papa Roach, Project Wyze, etc. And I think most of us can agree those aforementioned bands are pretty lame and stale.

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So, what I’m saying is - their musical style is not my thing but, they are a tight band with a lot of skill; the singer can really sing, the rapper is right on beat, the guitarist wails and the drummer is dead on. I can’t really recommend them based on the material I heard, but I can say that if you miss the days of doing it all for the nookie or just missed it the first time around, it’d be hard to find a band around these parts that does it better.

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