To My Surprise

To My Surprise Artist: To My Surprise
Label: Roadrunner Records
Category: Music


Average customer rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars
Media: Audio CD
Number Of Discs: 1


UPC: 016861839628
EAN: 0016861839628
ASIN: B0000CDLN1


Release Date: 2003-10-07

To My Surprise


Related Categories:

General General
Categories | Alternative Rock | Styles | Music
General General
Categories | Rock | Styles | Music
Pop Rock Pop Rock
Categories | Pop | Styles | Music

Tracks:

  1. World's Too Small
  2. Get It to Go
  3. In the Mood
  4. Blue
  5. Say Goodbye
  6. Easy or Not
  7. Turn It Back Around
  8. This Life
  9. Come With Me
  10. Sunday
  11. Who's to Say

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Customer Reviews:

5 out of 5 stars How can you NOT like this?.......2006-08-18

First of all, you've got to forget about Slipknot. Come at this release from a different perspective. A recall of 60's pop and psychodelica. Not pop like bubblegum, more of a drifty, melodic, sometimes truly weird, which is great.

To put the sound here in reference (albeit a reference that nobody will get), this release sounds sort of like Gibby Haynes And His Problem and sort of like Lusk's Free Mars. Only this has more pianos and a little less weirdness. If you like To My Surprise, then I strongly recommend those two albums.

4 out of 5 stars different.... .......2005-12-15

its deffinatly different from slipknot... just because one would love slipknot, they dont neccesarily need to like the side projects they have.... but when it comes down to it, TMS has taste, and substance... Oliver Ignatius, why would you waste your time reviewing a band you dont like.... things are never one-sided....

2 out of 5 stars To your surprise.......2005-02-12

Side projects can be brilliant, like the Postal Service, or they can be deeply, intensely unimpressive like... well, like To My Surprise's self-titled debut. Shawn "Clown" Crahan of Slipknot tries a foray into power pop that ends up sounding fragmented and forgettable. You've heard it all before, and it was more fun when the greats did it.

Crahan and his bandmates are certainly shooting for a more eclectic pop sound -- there are stretches of filler between semi-listenable songs, which bring to mind classic bands like the Beatles, Pink Floyd, a bit of the Doors ("This is the end, this is the end/my only friend, the end" -- paging the Lizard King), a trickle of glam-rock and so on. Not a bad selection of influences, when you think about it.

Alas and alack, the album doesn't gel. Crahan has plenty of influences, but it feels like he just grabbed a bunch of the best bands' best songs he could find and tried to make his own versions with a poppier twist. As a result, the songs that stretch into mild rock or psychedelic pop feel derivative and strained.

The songs that DON'T feel derivative aren't much better -- they tend to be fillerish. "This Life" achieves a certain distant eerieness, gained with odd echoing effects and a driving piano melody, but more often the sound is generic powerpop, complete with "Turn It Back Around's" bassline that goes on forever without really doing anything.

Some musically mediocre bands can overcome their deficiencies by having really great songs. And To My Surprise... is not one of those bands. When they're not ripping off Jim Morrison's songs, Crahan sings bland love songs in a slightly cracked voice: "You're the only girl out there/who says it's easy to live with me/Easy or not, I appreciate the shot/And I know down deep inside that it was meant to be." Sorry -- the heartstrings simply are not stirring.

In the end, "To My Surprise" will only surprise fans of Slipknot, who expected something a bit harder. For anyone else, this tepid batch of pop-rock tunes won't serve up a single surprise. Summed up, dull, simplistic and derivative.

4 out of 5 stars To your surprise!.......2004-07-09

This is a good album if you like Beatles-type music, but be warned it doesn't have anything to do with Slipknot.

3 out of 5 stars

Music Album:

  1. About Time ~ Ten Years After
  2. Songs All Sound the Same ~ Supersuckers
  3. Afreaka! ~ Demon Fuzz
  4. The Official American Bandstand Library of Rock & Roll ~ Various Artists
  5. Let It Rock ~ Various Artists
  6. With This Kiss: Collection ~ Amy Sky
  7. Ancient Alien (Original Soundtrack) ~ Various Artists
  8. Miss America ~ Mary Margaret O'Hara
  9. The Siket Disc ~ Phish
  10. Disney Magic ~ Disney

Music Album

Music Album

Music CD

Groove Yard ~ The Montgomery Brothers

Tippin' ~ Hal Galper Trio

Trio Transition With Special Guest Oliver Lake ~ Trio Transition & Oliver Lake

Speed Demon ~ David Matthews & First Calls

I Wish You Peace ~ Paul Dunmall

Live at the Beverly Cavern ~ Kid Ory & His Creole Jazz Band

Irthes San Oniro ~ Tolis Voskopoulos

Livehaftig ~ Udo Lindenberg

Onkel Toms Hotte Von Harriet Beecher-Stowe ~ Bodo Primus

O Fado ~ Francisco Fialho