The Audition "Great Danger" Reviewed by Hear/Say™, Buy it now

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The Audition
Great Danger

Campus Correspondent Review By Laura Cebula,
Belmont University

Chicago was a breeding ground for pop/punk bands in the 2000s. Groups like Spitalfield and June appeared on the local label Victory Records and acts such as The Academy Is… and Fall Out Boy became modern rock legends. The latter groups are mainstays in the scene, but other hometown heroes have since broken up and fallen into obscurity. Somewhere in between obscurity and mega-stardom is The Audition. The Windy City rockers recently went through a line-up change, but still were able to release the fourth album Great Danger (Victory Records). This time around The Audition is sweeter than its lyrically seductive sophomore release of Champion, but seems to be reverting back to 2005’s Controversy Loves Company.

The band is going back to its pop/punk roots by setting aside the more risqué topics and focusing again on young love and break-ups. “I see a girl who will always be/ Everything I will ever need/ I wrote this in hopes to change you/ But then again, what was I thinking?” on “Can You Remember” is one instance of the teenage journal entry-like confessions in the music. Driving drumbeats and the use of different effects also lead the band back to its roots, such as in the opening song “Let Me Know,” where vocalist Danny Stevens plays around with different effects, something that pops up in a number of other songs on the album.

No matter how punk the band, every group seems to put at least one acoustic track on its album, and on Great Danger, that’s “Run Away.” Like most other bands in its genre, The Audition cannot pull off the slow, genuine love song. The album’s closing track, “Final Adventure,” redeems it and ends the album strongly, but still leaves the listener wondering if Great Danger was not just Controversy Loves Company remixed.