Benefit of a Doubt

One Way Ticket Home
2005
Settle 4 Less




Review by: Anchors
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Published on February 17th 2006

I’d just like to know, why do you need a one way ticket home, when you’ve never left your parents' house in the first place? These are the kind of complex social issues that Benefit of a Doubt struggle with on their deeply introspective album, One Way Ticket Home.

Straight from junior high, these poorly arranged and poorly executed tracks display everything that could go wrong with a pop-punk album, and trust me, there’s plenty. The band has an extremely rudimentary understanding of basic song structure, displayed by the seemingly endless repetition, and overall lack of any single element of their music able to make itself enjoyable. One will immediately notice the vocals, though not for their positive presence, but quite simply because they grate on the nerves like few singers I have ever heard.

The nasal delivery is downright hard to listen to, and the lyrics certainly don’t help anyone’s case:

Stop by tonight, pick up your stuff, the door’s wide open / You forgot your favorite sweater, your new CDs / The picture you hated of you and me, I want it all gone / I want to forget what went on, far too long / Walk on, why don’t you fade away, yeah you had your chance / Now just do us both a favor and just get away.

The music behind the vocals doesn’t make them any easier of a pill to swallow, unfortunately. The muddled guitar playing and forgetful instrumentation lacks any sort of punch whatsoever, even for pop-punk. It was definitely seen as a production afterthought, and it’s all too obvious with the finished product. “Don’t Wait” exemplifies this problem, as the loudest thing in the entire song is the annoying repeating “na na na na”s at the end of the track. The instrumentation, like on the rest of the album, is barely even audible.

I really hope for these guys’ sake they’re still in high school, because a few music theory and production classes could do them wonders.