Terms and conditions
Tuesday, May 30, 2006
One year after Maple Jam/ICON MES founder Dane Andreeff caught them as an opening act at SoGo and put his considerable marketing machine behind them, The Terms singer Ben Labat is resolute against the flack the band receives.
Review: The Terms-Small Town Computer Crash (Maple Jam)
Putting that “Welcome to the Now (Evo Devo)” song aside—which sounds exactly like the jingle it is—Small Town Computer Crash is a collection of appealing mid-tempo summery songs. It’s the kind of stuff that works in the same space that Counting Crows, Train and Coldplay operate: adult-oriented rock. The Terms keep to their goal of making listenable music that will appeal to a wide audience, with sing-song lyrics, pleasant harmonies and chiming guitars. The problem is: There’s no teeth to it, nothing that really catches you. It breezes by carefree like a song on The O.C., but it doesn’t stick with you. These guys are competent and confident enough musicians to pull off a big power pop hit, but it feels like they haven’t quite found their voice yet.
“We just write songs,” Labat says. “I think we write great songs that appeal to a wide audience.”
It’s difficult to tell if The Terms have made it. Getting a song picked up for the credits for the Kevin Spacey produced Mini’s First Time says yes, but an in-store appearance at the Bossier City Wal-Mart says maybe not yet. Labat seems to be taking all this in stride.
“We played the Viper Room in L.A., played a sold-out show at the Cutting Room in New York City, where Richie Cannata [sax player for Billy Joel] and Gerardo Velez [percussionist for Jimi Hendrix] joined us on stage. We are the luckiest guys in the world, because playing and writing songs is all we want to do.”
The Terms will spend the summer gigging around New England and the East Coast and return here in October for the Baton Rouge State Fair. Their debut album Small Town Computer Crash was released on April 25 on Maple Jam records. thetermsmusic.com.
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