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Written by Kevin Huelsmann Monday, 04 December 2006 14:16

The scream-heavy verses with choruses on their second album, Let Your Body Take Over, try to wring out some emotion, or at least empathy, from the listener. The problem is that they don't go anywhere.

Four Letter Lie is five guys from Minnesota trying to dry hump a dead horse for all its worth. Let's kick the dead horse, string it up, walk it around, then shoot it so we can kick it some more.

The commercial genre FLL are going for is dead. The scream-heavy verses with choruses on their second album, Let Your Body Take Over, try to wring out some emotion, or at least empathy, from the listener. The problem is that they don't go anywhere.

Other people have done the scream/sing thing before; these guys aren't exactly charting new territories in music. I'm sure FLL are talented musicians, but lyrics such as, "I'm watchin' you up on my screen, celebrity/ she means everything to me/ I want to hear her voice aloud/ wanna hear her voice out loud," from "Feel Like Fame" are just mushy crap.

On their Web site, the band is described as having, "...scream along choruses, monster breakdowns and unexpected, yet well balanced soft side..." How much shit can you pack into a sentence? I'm not even sure what a monster breakdown is, and if you read further down the page, Connor Kelley (guitars, vocals) says, "We like to melt faces." Jack Black got away with it because he is Jack Black; it doesn't work for the guitarist of FLL. Sorry, man.

The band plays two songs. One alternates between a verse where the lead singer, Brian Nagan, is screaming undistinguishable sounds over heavy guitars and pulsing drums, and a chorus of heart-felt lyrics over more mellow guitars. The other model is an acoustic song which finds the singer sings about how hard it is to love someone when you're young.

I've never liked this type of music and I've never identified with the whole diagonal bangs across the forehead, streaked hair, trendy T-shirts, and teenage angst that FLL seem to represent. My listening to this CD is like trying to sell a mountain to someone without legs. Kudos to the band for its resolve in getting their music out on their own, even though they bludgeon you with that fact on everything with their name on it.

Still, my wish for the band is this: I hope that FLL fire their publicist, drop the teenage heart-tug angle, and start writing something that resembles original music. Good luck, guys. | Kevin Huelsmann