Spank-Get Bent

Self-produced
2009


This is the sophomore effort from North Carolina's Spank. I am not sure what my expectations were for this one, but ultimately it's a mixed bag at best. It was three songs in before "Back to me" showed some real promise with it's early 80's hard rock groove. Just when I thought they were getting it all together they seem to bounce back and forth. There are some fun songs that play off of some smooth arrangements and sensational melodies. The vocals work wonderfully on those songs as well. Unfortunately Spank are bit of Jekyll and Hyde band as well. For every catchy and well written track there seem to be an equal amount of drab tracks that just pass the time, but fail to do much else. I felt like just when I knew where this was going they would go the opposite way on the next song and then flip flop even more after that. So undoubtedly the potential is there, but they certainly lack consistency. They also seem to be lacking in the idea department as the weaker songs suffer from being overly repetitive at times. When Spank are on they are really on. However there were far too many moments where I was left thinking that they needed to be spending more time on their writing. I hope that given some more time and practice that they can hopefully figure out their direction and have all of the songs at their peak.