THREE CHEERS FOR THE BROKEN-HEARTED

With this album, I feel that Glass Hammer betrayed everyone who has been carrying water for them.

I want to support an artist's right and responsibility to follow their muse, but I think it's also fair to say that when someone picks up a Glass Hammer record, it's because they are a progressive rock fan, and not someone looking for a cheap knock off of 10,000 Maniacs or Tori Amos.

"Three Cheers for the Broken Hearted" is a pop album with tiny - tiny! -references to this having been a symphonic prog band at one time. They lift tricks wholesale from the Beatles as a songwriting template.

I struggle to imagine who the intended audience of this album might be. It didn't chart on the top 40, and it can't please someone who loved Glass Hammer's previous work.

Glass Hammer has now had two failed experiments. One was to include a "shredding" style guitarist on their previous album, "Culture of Ascent." This was a failed attempt to seem relevant to the prog-metal scene. Instead, it ruined some pretty promising melodies with directionless five-string Onanism.

This album tries to sell Glass Hammer as a college radio-ready alt-pop band. It sounds more suspiciously like a reject from Christian rock radio.

I miss the male vocals and complex arrangements. I miss the ambitious themes. I miss the progressive rock!

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