Frozen Radio Dinners – Hudsonville… Michigan

‘Hudsonville… Michigan’ is the debut album from the indie rock band Frozen Radio Dinners. Is it indie or alternative? I don’t really get those connotations other than that they’re outside the giant record labels… But some indie bands are part of large record labels and there are a plethora of alternative bands that have major label record deals. I don’t get it. Anyway. This band sounds more alternative than indie to me.  For me, indie means ‘the new commercial’ which doesn’t really mean indie does it? Commercially viable?  I am a very small creature trying to understand the intricacies of a massive and seemingly impenetrable complex world…. Cue the Flaming Lips song… Wait. Review! That’s what I was doing….

The lyrics of FRD don’t have a whole lot of depth to them, but lead singer ‘Jani’ seems to have a whole lot of fun screaming them out. Her singing style is similar to the lead singer  of the early 90s band ‘Baby Animals’. She had a very husky voice (and was really, REALLY hot. Judging from the pics on the liner notes, so is ‘Jani’. She too, has a husky voice but she screams a whole lot more. Much. Much. More. I’m not saying she has a bad voice; she doesn’t. She should just use it more…

The rest of the band are listenable enough, but they are one of those bands that have ‘a sound’ and go with it. There are some really good bands that do that (the Toadies come to mind, the Ramones, etc), but sometimes the songs all start running together. I think these songs are best taken one at a time, because they are all pretty good as long as they’re not played in sequence. Maybe that’s just me, though. Their best song is the last one on their album and their longest. ‘Moose and rabbit’ is a little different from the rest of the album, in that there is a long moody intro and the song takes several minutes to build to critical mass. It’s an instrumental except for a few moans from Jani (which were actually pretty nice) and I kind of want more of the last song when it ends.

Not the most creative band, but if you just want straight rock (with a girl singer), then you’ll probably like this . Even though I liked this album for the most part  I’m predicting that I’ll have forgotten that I own this album a year from now. It has promise, though, so maybe their next effort will be a bit more polished and have some better ‘hooks’ to remember them by.

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