The Like 
As I listened to this album, I couldn’t help sensing The Sundays. The vocals, more than anything else, sound like The Sundays. The instrumentation, with a couple of very rocking exceptions, sounds like The Sundays. That isn’t exactly a bad thing; however, it doesn’t set The Like apart from its contemporaries. In fact, the band’s name sums this up quite well: a moody pop/rock band, similar to The Sundays and the like.
Despite their analogous nature, The Like provided some interesting moments on Are You Thinking…, particularly on “June Gloom,” “Under the Paving Stones,” “The One,” and most especially on “Falling Away.” On “June Gloom,” we experience lovely walking guitar and bass that propels one right down the street, regardless of the day’s events. On “Paving Stones,” we’ve got some pulsing guitars evocative of frustrated panic, and later in the track, out and out rage, which can also send one down the street, but this time in order to kick the ass of whosoever happens to deserve it that day. “The One” starts out with some 80s on-the-upbeat percussion and sparkly, sustained guitar chords, and by the end one probably wouldn’t find it difficult to envision Molly Ringwald getting down to this ditty.
“Falling Away,” however, leaves them all in the dust. This song should have been placed much earlier in the CD’s lineup – were it placed in such a way, it surely would have roped in some new listeners. The Who’s John Entwhistle haunts the bass line throughout the song, and his ghost screams out with astonishing clarity on one particular fill occurring between the chorus and the verse. “Falling Away” is the most fully rocking song on the album, providing a mid-song gear-shift of such surprising force and character that The Like begins to sound like a completely different band – a band not much like The Sundays at all. With the change-up at the chorus, The Like makes it clear that they are a new band whose sound is part of what is happening in music right now, not fifteen years ago.
The Like, in general, is infinitely more interesting when they’re rocking out rather than spinning their wheels on a Sunday.
-- Rebecca Thorndike |
