Neon Trees - Picture Show

Neon Trees’ new album, Picture Show, has all the ingredients to take you back in time to the wonder years of being a teenager. The only problem is: They only brought the bad ingredients with them.

Listening to this album is like walking down the hall in high school, but instead of running into Molly Ringwald or Anthony Michael Hall, you are more likely run into Biff and his goons. No, this is no John Hughes movie.

Leading off with “Moving In The Dark” was their first mistake. The track itself isn’t entirely terrible. It has a driving beat that carries you throughout the track and the vocals prove Tyler Glenn is a talented vocalist; the only problem is that the lyrics are so cliché it turns the track into a cheesy intro for a bad 80s movie.

“Mad Love” is probably the biggest disappointment of the album. It’s the one song that actually ventures into a John Hughes movie; it managed to roll all of Molly Ringwald’s most depressing parts and compressed them into one track. “Mad Fail” is more like it.

The band does take one break to redeem themselves with “Close To You.” This is the one track where they step out of the cookie cutter and show some real creativity.

Glenn uses his voice to transform into one of the Lost Boys and uses his vocal talent to lure us into his vampire lair where we can all fall victim to his charms.

The concept of the album is not its downfall, its execution is. Instead of creating an album full of originality and creativity, Neon Trees took old concepts, rerecorded them and changed the words.