Posted on: September 26, 2010 Posted by: John B. Moore Comments: 0

Four records into it and American Hi-Fi are still living blissfully in the 90’s. It makes sense, given that front man Stacy Jones played drums for Letters to Cleo and Veruca Salt, two successful 90’s alt rock bands.

On Fight the Frequency, the band’s first album in five years, American Hi-Fi plays competent alt rock with plenty of sing-along choruses, crunchy distorted guitars and tight drumming. What’s lacking is simply anything original. The dozen tracks, all decent enough, are quickly forgettable seconds after the band moves onto the next song. The closest thing to a stand out track on the record, “Acetate,” is still far from memorable compared to some of the band’s earlier singles.

A majority of the members in American Hi-Fi also play in Miley Cyrus’s band, so you’d think they’d be pretty open to writing catchy tunes, regardless of your thoughts of the Disney teen queen, but that’s simply not the case with Fight the Frequency. The album sounds like a collection of tracks that just never made it onto their 1998 debut. As Jones sings in “Lost,” “The past is over now,” a sentiment the band clearly doesn’t adhere to.

Rating: 6 out of 10

Top track: “Fight the Frequency”

American Hi-Fi – Fight the Frequency /1 CD/12 tracks/2010/Hi-Fi Killers/The Ascot Club

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