In this modern time we find ourselves lost in, with the accessibility of home recording and Internet venues like myspace making it easy for stuff to get heard, the douchebags of the world have been galvanized to produce the shittiest music anyone could ever imagine. Listen to ATTACK FORMATION for a clear example of the sad state of the music industry we are currently living in. Listen, my friends, and weep.

Apparently, ATTACK FORMATION is a collective of "musicians" with an ever-changing line-up. While their press release touts the band's ability to "redefine itself aesthetically," and "break boundaries," the only boundary that is broken, upon listening, is the listener's tolerance for annoying, art-school jerk-offery.

Artists like BECK and DAFT PUNK are conjured up at different points throughout "We Are Alive in Time," and that is when this group is at its strongest. "Similar Sideways Glace," with its almost (ALMOST) charmingly whiny and off-key vocals, is a decently constructed bit of altera-pop that could find heavy rotation on mainstream modern rock radio alongside the YEAH YEAH YEAHS and groups of their ilk. The tuneful "We Were (Always) Often w/o Money" also could be a hit among college kids. But the bits of conventionality and evidence of genuine songwriting craft are too few and far between. The gauntlet is thrown down for untalented nerds everywhere with album opener "The New State of Sound." Comprised entirely of what sounds like a harmonica solo recorded through a megaphone amid random samples and noises, you'll wonder where the nails and blackboard were that day in the studio. The ATTACK FORMATION sound can probably be summed up most clearly by the song "Let's Play Immature," which, like many of the other tunes on here, features just vocals droning on and on over a cacophony of sampled musical bits and noises.

Perhaps, in a startling moment of self-realization, track 12 asks a relevant question. "Girl, What's Wrong?" is the songs title, and the answer to that question is clear. "This record is terrible!"

- Broadbent

OFFICIAL SITE: www.attackformation.org

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