CD REVIEW: Walk Off the Earth “R.E.V.O.”

Walk Off the Earth “R.E.V.O.”

                First impressions are everything.    The first thing I learned about Walk Off the Earth is that they became somewhat popular by covering the Goyte hit “Somebody That I Used to Know”.   That struck me as being a bit odd because that’s still a fairly recent song.   In a lot of ways (And maybe it’s just because I am a fan of his, but not the biggest fan of his) it’s because Goyte still seems to be riding the coattails of that particular song.  You know, in a lot of ways, it was kind of like, “Hey, get your own single, you guys!!”   So coming into this album, Walk Off the Earth has some catching up to do because I assume a lot of critics will write them off as being that band that covered that song that used to be cool but has since become annoying.

                And actually, in their defense, the Walk Off the Earth version of “Somebody That I Used to Know” is quite better than the Goyte version.   Although the plucked notes can remind me of “Baa Baa Black Sheep” (Which is either public domain or Goyte is about to get sued), they add female vocals to the song and to hear the female voice just belt out the titular line… Yeah, Goyte can’t top that, no matter how much love I have for Kimbra. 

                So on the first two songs on “R.E.V.O.”, I’m feeling this Lion King vibe mixed with who knows what else.   Mainly, this band does not sound like Goyte at all.   It just all seems coincidental that they covered his song.     By “Gang of Rhythm” the male and female vocals (Though singing about CSNY) sound like a mix between Jack Johnson, a children’s storyteller musician and, yes, the Lion King vibe is still there for me.    The way he describes the instruments as they play though really makes me think this is made for children, but I don’t think it is.

                As we get into “Speeches”, the bad has some Mexican type horns which invoke a sound not too much unlike The Dirty Heads and that one song that they had only better.   In fact, if WOTE covered that Dirty Heads song (I think it was called “Lay Me Down”) it would make a bit more sense, but whatever.  This band hasn’t been saying, “Hey, you need to write longer reviews for all of your bands” or anything like that, so I won’t go telling them how to cover their cover songs.  

                So, really, this album could be summed up quite simply though I did enjoy going on about it for a little while.   If you are one of the fans of their cover (or find it to be better than the original like me) then the rest of this album will surely win you over.   If you happen to be all like, “Screw Goyte and screw those guys”, then hopefully the rest of “R.E.V.O.” could still win you over.  It might not be easy, but I could see it happening.