Whilst trying to be ambient art rock, these guys just come across as a bit pretentious. The lack of writing skill is never more apparent than in the two completely pointless instrumentals, “Caledonian McBryne” and “John Arne”. These are simplistic and dull, and neither of the tracks show any hint of movement or dynamics. Things don’t improve any on the tracks with vocals either. With sections bolted together, such as on “6:00am”, the writers emphasise a lack of understanding of structure and form.
The weak production doesn’t do them any favours either. I don’t think I’ve ever heard a CD where the drummer would so obviously rather be playing another instrument - his flailing patterns are a distraction, ill serving any of the tracks, and rather than showing any technique, sound more like a spoilt child trying to show-off. The choices of guitar and keyboard tones rarely sit well together, tending to fight each other in the mix. At points the band seems to be trying to be LinkinPark (lots of guitar harmonics and the odd drum machine), but fail and end up sounding like a saccharine, lite version instead. The worst offending track is” Nova Rude”, where the swirling backdrop detracts rather than compliments the trembling bell-like arpeggios on which the track is built. Additionally, rather than let the tune build naturally, poorly played drums break into the bridge of the song and the mix of the bass spoils any hint of subtlety within the song.
The vocals are too thin and poorly mixed to stand out. Brattish delivery gives Camera 237 an American pop-punk feel, and on the song “Carry On (To Carry On)”, the chorus of ‘Carry ow-ow-n’ is particularly irritating and poorly thought-out as a delivery for the vocal line.
Camera 237 claim to be diamonds, unfortunately they are really still graphite. But, with a bit of time and a lot of pressure…