Capitol
2004
Schmack!
About This Album
What the world needs now is another Sum 41, only from New Zealand this time. Steriogram understand this. Capitalizing on the international clamor, the Kiwi fivesome have delivered a clattering, campy, gloriously in-the-moment scrapheap of riffs and attitude called Schmack!. Like all scrapheaps, the album has its fair share of useless filler. But, like the Sums, the boys in Steriogram have a particular flair for pinning outsized metal riffs and impossibly generic white-boy raps onto a punk-pop framework, and making the whole mess work. Well, it works in two-minute doses, anyway. "Walkie Talkie Man" introduces gawky MC Tyson Kennedy's snarky patter -- he sounds like Scrappy Doo with Red Bull wings (Kennedy's first line: "Well you're walkin' and a talkin' and a movin' and a groovin' and a hippin' and a hoppin'..."). Musically, the track is paint-by-numbers modern rock, built entirely from a guitar hook and clever production. Thank Sugar Ray- and Sublime-helming veteran David Kahne for that. He understands how much Kennedy's delivery flirts with being irritating, and throughout Schmack! he cleverly plays his presence off the more traditional chorus vocals of Brad Carter.
Track List (try tracks 2,3,5,8,9 and 11)

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