Search - Chris Lee :: Cool Rock

Experimental jazz sounds un-"COOL" and evidently un-"ROCK"

09/16/2003

(1 out of 5 stars)

"Mention the title of this album to someone and await the universal signal of disinterest...no response. Play the album and receive more of the same.Chris Lee's cliched metaphors and ambitious song titles display a songwriter in need of some soul searching, but he deserves credit for singing about his limitations I suppose albeit unknowingly.Witness the following lyric, "I'm just a man who sings what I know, oooh oooh oooh ooohhh say it ain't soul," he coos his lines amidst the backdrop of formless and unexpressed guitar strums. The rest of the album features displaced jazz chords which puntuate the recording's lack of cohesion and unity.This is hardly the stuff of lyrical genius. Call it indie rock with no driving sound. Folk with no meaning. Rock with no influences. Neo-soul devoid of profundity. Whatever you label it, the pretentiousness of COOL ROCK begs the listener for a wistful refund of the 30 minutes you spent listening for the music which never surfaces. Sadly, Chris Lee has a beautiful falsetto buried within discorded notes and meaningless phrases. His voice is better appreciated in his previous records where the song arrangements are crisp, structured and emotive."