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The Rocket Summer: Do You Feel

The Rocket Summer: Do You Feel
Introducing Endless Mode: A New Games & Anime Site from Paste

After releasing two mildly successful indie albums, lead Rocket Summer songwriter Bryce Avary signed to the same major label as Fall Out Boy. And in 2005, along with a string of corporate handlers, he began trying to replicate the pop-star status that has thus far only greeted him in Japan, perhaps because the infectious mall-emo sing-alongs and delicate indie-pop guitars of his 2003 debut, Calendar Days, were often too unfocused to truly move the stateside masses.

That problem still plagues Do You Feel, only now, Avary has a much larger budget to work with. Throughout, he churns out slick radio rock, but crowds things out with jumpy piano lines and cornball saxophones. He also gets awkwardly earnest: On the particularly messy "So Much Love," he declares, "You've got so much love in you / I'm amazed that I'm talking to you." Yikes. Consider this another reason why he might continue to strike a chord with fans who don't actually speak English.

 
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