Standby
All For Nothing
by Scott Deckman
Most bands suck, that’s a given. StandBy, kids, half of whom are 17, don’t suck. You may get Silverchair flashbacks circa 1995, only less grating (and I mean that). Singer/guitarist Eddie Dolak even sounds a bit Australian, on one track at least. To be young and talented is a good prescription for the blues. Yeah.
Plus, these kids have the biggest Linktree I’ve ever seen.
Single “All Your Fault” is a Seattle stomper with a nice beat and guitars galore. Though the band may’ve benefitted by having the backup vocals on the last chorus mixed higher and adding them on each refrain. “Do It Again,” another version of which was released as a single in 2022, is a rocker with complex drumming and blasting guitars. Dolak plays a serious guitar solo over a pretty fast rhythm. Single “Your Own Demise” (how many singles can this 10-song record have? Three, it turns out. Four, if you count “Do It Again”) is a Stone Temple Pilots/Jimmy Eat World mashup, and again features a blistering solo, but it’s the heavy chords that win the battle. Drummer Michael Turton, the old man in the band at 20, has a nice solo himself toward the end. Told ya the kid can play.
On “My Mother’s Lullaby,” a kid thought he knew it all, found out he doesn’t know shit, and yearns to go back to a time when he was even younger and more innocent. Single “All For Nothing” is a mixed-tempo affair which features shredding at the opening of the song (and later), Dolak singing about all his years on this big green Earth, losing a love I think. Hold your snide. To a young person, a decade and a half is a heck of a long time. Actually, 15 years is long time no matter how fast it goes by these days. The band may be trying to fit in too many motifs on this number, though.
“Good Bad Ugly” offers a heavy grunge riff and spiky rhythms, but also dog-killing, high-pitched guitar squalls in the second half of the song that are hard on the ears. The band finishes with “Do It Again (acoustic version),” which is earnest enough.
There are a few old-guy chuckles with some of the lyrics on All For Nothing, the profundities of teenagers, but we were all teens once, green and dumb, when everything was new and just as real, and probably more poignant. At 2 or 92, we feel, therefore we are. Some of the novelty of being teenagers producing quality music is part of the charm, but the fact that it is pretty good in a sea full of suck is the bigger headline.
