Audio By Carbonatix
Neighborhood Villain plays straightforward, muscular punk rock that can get your adrenaline pumping for about 15 minutes, and fortunately, Look Within doesn’t last much longer than that.
From the opening riff of “Decisions” to the end of “Strength to Be,” it’s all power chords, all the time, aside from the occasional guitar intro, solo or 10-second bass break. This formula works best in the album’s shortest song, the furious kiss-off “Goodbye,” which would sound perfect blasting cathartically from a car stereo immediately after an ugly breakup. But some dynamics—even just a single song under 60 bpm—definitely would have helped the songs from blending together by the seventh and final track.
Singer Gjared Robinson’s shouted vocals somehow sound inspirational despite the generally pessimistic lyrical content about regret, lost love and the pointlessness of punching the time clock; maybe that’s because in closer “Strength to Be,” he finally learns his lesson and channels his inner junior-high guidance counselor, closing with the mantra “I don’t care what they think…Be yourself, not someone else.”
