Music reviews. CD reviews. Critically hip!

The title of Pillbox Remedy’s album,  Is this what we wanted?  might just be a question from the band's sole creator Carlos Paras, to his fans and people who have written about his music.  It seems to me that the title itself is the question -- 'Is this what you wanted?'  Maybe I'm wrong, but let's take a look...

This is an emo/acoustic album with a total of six songs. Five of the songs were written by Carlos Paras and the other is an acoustic cover of the Alkaline Trio song "Trouble Breathing." Most of the tracks deal with love and friendship and are filled with strong vocals, good lyrics and crisp guitar. There were two songs that really worked for me. First was "I’m Dead." There is a brief moment at the end where he plays two guitars off each other -- it sounds really great, a sound that works well here and might be adviseable to use in the future. The other one is called simply, "Tonight."  What really caught my attention was the backing vocals.  They really make "Tonight" stand out from the others.  It's an interesting, sonically appealing song.

Unfortunately, the news is not all good -- I did have a few problems with the album. First of all, when one song ends and another begins, it seems like the same song all over again... almost the same song.  The style throughout is very repetitive.  If Paras had added just a little more, say, in the way of backing vocals.. maybe a little extra guitar here and there.. the songs would have been more unique and teh whole album would have been better.  But for the most part, Is this What We Wanted? is a pretty good effort.  If you are a fan of acoustic punk music I would recommend you give Pillbox Remedy a try.  You might just decide that it IS what you wanted.