“Zombies on Broadway” doesn’t impress

Serena Bettis • February 12, 2017

Andrew McMahon in the Wilderness, an indie-pop/alternative rock band formed in 2014, released their second album on Friday, February 12, entitled Zombies on Broadway. The band is fronted by singer Andrew McMahon, who also sung in the early-2000s pop punk band Something Corporate and the later-2000s Jack’s Mannequin. I’ve been a fan of McMahon since I saw him in concert in 2015, and despite the fact that all three of the groups he’s been involved with have a distinctly unique sound from each other, I’ve instantly liked their work from the first time I’ve heard it. Andrew McMahon in the Wilderness’s self-titled debut album is by far my favorite, as it has such a soft, quiet sound that’s perfect to listen to as I attempt to do homework, but also upbeat enough that it’s fun to sing along to in the car. Needless to say, I was very excited for the release of Zombies on Broadway, but I found myself a little let down the first time I listened to it.

At first impression, Zombies on Broadway isn’t what I wanted. I’m not exactly sure what I do want from it, so that’s a little unfair to say, but when listening to new music I want to be intrigued, and moved. Flat is the best description I can give of my feelings towards this album when I first heard it. That doesn’t mean that the album is bad, but it’s also not stellar when it doesn’t give me the inexplicable feeling of something special I get in my chest when I listen to great music. I like the album the more I listen to it, even though I’m disappointed that it wasn’t love at first note.

It’s difficult to pinpoint the exact genre this album falls under, as it’s a bit all over the place. My least favorite thing about the album is that I can’t find a singular story within it, from the first track to the last; it’s more of a collection of different songs. That, too, isn’t entirely a bad thing, but lately I’m more impressed with albums that have a story arc, where you can see why the first song is the first, and why the other ones follow suit. In my opinion, some of the best albums have themes throughout them, and I’m still not even sure why the title of this one is Zombies on Broadway. Perhaps I simply need more introspection surrounding it.

The album opens with “Zombies Intro”, a 27 second track that sounds like a collection of noises one would hear on a New York City subway platform. This reminds me of something that the band The 1975 does a lot, but with less cool sounds, and I think it’s difficult to really hear and understand what’s going on during the first listen. The second song, “Brooklyn, You’re Killing Me” surprised me because it’s more quickly spoken than anything else I’ve heard from the band, and very different from what I was expecting. “Shot Out of a Cannon”, another song on the album, had a sound closer to what I’m used to hearing from McMahon, and one line of the chorus sounds very similar to the song “Halls”, from McMahon’s first self-titled album. My favorite song off the album so far is “Love And Great Buildings” because I really love the repeating melody behind all the lyrics.

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While Zombies on Broadway didn’t blow me out of the water, it’s still contains many great songs that I’m sure I’ll grow to love. McMahon did a good job of creating something that doesn’t sound exactly like all his other work but still contains his typical stories of life and love. I would definitely recommend listening to it, even if it takes multiple times to truly get into it like it took for me.

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About the Contributor

Serena Bettis, Editor-in-Chief

Serena Bettis, senior, is entering into her third year on the Etched in Stone staff as this year’s Editor-in-Chief. A four year journalism student, she has high hopes for Etched in Stone this school year, and wants to be able to guide the staff in achieving their goals as much as possible. While Bettis has become a much more outspoken person than she was when she started at Fossil Ridge High School, she still finds discomfort speaking in front of large groups of people (“large” being defined anywhere from 6 to 30), but is more than ready to grow in that aspect of leadership over the course of the year. Most of her journalistic goals for the year are not personal, but rather involve the entire program. She aims to further improve upon the look of the Etched in Stone website, which she spent countless hours on her junior year, enough for it to win awards before she graduates.

Aside from Etched in Stone, Bettis takes part in the school marching, jazz, and concert bands as a flute player, volunteers with Key Club, and is the Historian for the National Honor Society. She has also held a part-time job at TCBY for over a year, and now knows more than she needs to about the sugar content in frozen yogurt. In her spare time, which is often hard to come by, Bettis can be found reading for fun, lamenting about how none of the new Young Adult romance novels she used to love so much are good anymore, working on making the perfect French macaron, or binge watching her recent addiction, Game of Thrones. Music is a large part of her life, and her favorite genre is difficult to describe because she listens to many different bands. Some of her favorites include twenty one pilots, All Time Low, and Halsey, more alternative bands such as Issues and SWMRS, pop artists including Carly Rae Jepsen (“she’s so much more than “Call Me Maybe””), and Little Mix, and various songs by Spanish singers.

She is more than ready for graduation, and aspires to be attending college in Chicago by this time next year. Bettis knows that she wants to double major in journalism and foreign languages, with a potential minor in music, though she is undecided on what specific occupation she wants after college. Her best advice to someone who does not know what they are interested in is to simply join different activities and see what happens from there. “Eventually, sometime during sophomore year, journalism became the only class I wanted to go to, and even now I love it more than I used to love band, so that’s when it hit me that this was what I wanted to be involved in for most of my life,” she said. Another somewhat undecided goal of hers is to join the Peace Corps either during or after college, and she hopes that an experience in a different country with complete strangers might help her figure out what exactly she wants to do with her life.