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Forty Winks

To The Lonely Hearts (2002)
End Sounds

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Contributed by: Moldy
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Published on April 30th 2002

Italians are famous for mixing several ingredients together and coming out with something that tastes good but usually isn’t that good for you, and Forty Winks are no exception. They combine the sounds of todays biggest pop-punk styles to create their own version of MTV/radio approved pop-punk. The bands that they emulate are Ataris, Blink 182, and Dashboard Confessional with small bits of Alkaline Trio sprinkled in here and there.

Most of the CD plays as a combination of the Ataris and Blink 182. This is that it is standard pop-punk with semi-serious lyrics about love, loss, rejection, and all those other fun emotions associated with love. The Blink side of this band really stands out on “One Time, Two Times” and “Til The Moonlight Comes” which is a song about the difficulties of having a small penis. They show their Dashboard side on the intro to “Who Set The Rules” and the acoustic cover of their own song, which includes a harmonizing group of female vocals on the chouruses, “To the Very Lonely Hearts” On “Sick” I heard some guitar parts which reminded me of Alk3, but overall this band’s sound is Blink meets the Ataris.

To further their takeover of the airwaves, Forty Winks covers an obscure Guns N’ Roses song “You’re Crazy” of which they do a mediocre job. This disc also has an enhanced feature which contains pictures of them, alternate cover art, and a 20 minute video of them in the studio. Speaking of which, on the video they all speak either in Italian or with heavy Italian accents, which is expected, but on the disc I couldn’t hear a trace of one. They sounded just like any other American band, I think they should have kept the accents in, it would have given them some character, but it probably wouldn’t sell.

This band is going to be getting huge soon, with the recent addition of them to the Abercrombie stores music and videos. This band plays basic MTV/radio formatted pop-punk, which they do a good job, pick this up if you like Blink, Ataris, or shopping at A&F.

MP3s
The Big Turnover
To The Lonely Hearts
Who Sets The Rules

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Anonymous (May 6, 2002)

The vocalist sounds like a mix between Mike Herrera, Mike Burkett, and Milo Aukerman. It's odd, I hear little bits from all those voices.

Anonymous (May 6, 2002)

Damn! This vocalist sounds just like someone else I have heard. I can't put my finger on who it is? Anybody - who does he remind you of?

Anonymous (May 2, 2002)

Nice album for a new band. Good stuff.

Anonymous (May 2, 2002)

Youre Crazy obscure?!?!?! its one of the many great songs on apetite for destruction, perhaps the most consitent album, song for song, ever! k

Anonymous (April 30, 2002)

To the first guy who posted:
I didn't write the review. Eric [Moldy] did. Ask him about the Blink comparison, not me.

-Scott

Anonymous (April 30, 2002)

how do you get from 40 winks to the dead kennedys

Anonymous (April 30, 2002)

This is very poppy punk, but its really well done, and the production is tight.

The thing that will hang people up is they have this idea of bad superficial blink punk, with girls shouting the bands name in baby-t's.

You have to remember that Forty winks does play pop punk, and have that type of sound, but they are not big, their are no girls shouting there names in the states, and they are not on MTV. I hate how people call a band MTV punk and people instantly hate the band when they ARENT on MTV, and seriously, if you really think being on an instore abercrombie and fitch video has ever made anybody 'big', then you must think that the dead kennedys should have let there song be used in that levis commercial cause hey, it would have increased sales.

Recap: they play slick pop-punk, but its good and its not being super marketed. So if you want to say something bad about it, say it about the actual record not because you think their something they are not.

My only criticism, the vocals. Way drowned out by the gigantic guitars. So one downside to the great production is the vocals tend to get lost in the mix.

wyzo

Anonymous (April 30, 2002)

I have a slight bias towards this album, since it's on my label, but I think it's better than the review makes it out to be. If you already own the cd, press the "f" on your keyboard when you are on the main navigation page of the enhanced content. You will be able to download an unreleased Forty Winks songs recorded in December and see some exclusive photos. From time to time there are new mpg videos of them accessable also. I'm sure Mr. Moldy would even like that. No Scott, seriously, where's the Blink comparison?