Fretblanket: Home Truths From Abroad

MTV's 12 Angry Viewers is one of the nation's most powerful new musical tastemakers: The show, which features 12 young amateur music reviewers, praises and pans new videos, often deciding their placement (or, far more often than not, their lack thereof) in MTV's ludicrously limited video rotation. The show's stars are harsh critics, frequently lashing out at lame grunge knockoffs, but if their unprecedentedly glowing endorsement of Fretblanket is any indication, they're not nearly as opposed to pretty-boy Bush clones. Of course, Fretblanket sounded like Bush before Bush did, releasing the Bush-like, hitworthy Junkfuel (with its Bush-like, hitworthy single "Twisted") in 1994. But that doesn't stop the successful "Into The Ocean"—not to mention virtually all of Home Truths From Abroad—from echoing the strained bombast of Bush, with frontman Will Copley sounding uncannily like Bush singer Gavin Rossdale. Fortunately for those who will have Home Truths From Abroad shoved down their throats for the next year, Fretblanket's songs are considerably poppier and more upbeat than Bush's dreadfully tortured latter material. But that's not really an endorsement.