Garrison: A Mile in Cold Water

Someone needs to tell Garrison to grow up. With their unoriginal instrumentation and whiny vocals, Garrison comes across as an overgrown adolescent garage band that somehow ended up with a record contract on A Mile in Cold Water. The result is annoying, but fortunately, easily forgettable. The best thing that can be said about A Mile in Cold Water is that, at a little over 40 minutes, it’s short.

Featuring a very generic post-grunge hard rock sound, Garrison is almost like a Green Day wannabe without the sense of humor. Clearly taking themselves too seriously, Garrison tries too hard in all areas, creating an album that is some times nearly laughable. Bring no sense of fun or passion to their music, Garrison seems lifeless and devoid of any excitement. A Mile in Cold Water quickly becomes tiresomely boring.

A Mile in Cold Water might be salvageable if the vocals were not so horrible. Half spoken and half sung, they are simply annoying and bring no expression or insight to any of the songs. They turn what might have been an almost mediocre album into something that has no redeeming value.

Lyrically, Garrison attempts to be clever with throw-away thoughts like “your words taste like unswallowed pills” from “Our Mild Scoliosis” (a title that has nothing to do with the lyrics of the song) and the very uninventive “don’t stand in place and let this break” from “The Dumbest Angel.” Overall, these songs are about some sort of loss of love, but there’s nothing going on under the surface of the words. They are meaningless, but for the most part, can be ignored.

No song on A Mile in Cold Water rises above the dullness that permeates the entire album. They all blend together monotonously, causing the listener not to care where one song ends and the next begins. The only thing that matters is that the whole thing is closer to being over.

Garrison’s A Mile in Cold Water is probably as uninteresting as they come. It’s bogged down in the uninspired music, lyrics and the downright obnoxious vocals. If we’ll all in luck, Garrison will go away quickly.