Smack Smash - Beatsteaks

Living Targets - Beatsteaks

The third album from German punk band Beatsteaks invariably disappoints with its more conscious mainstream direction, watering down the punk elements with melodic hard rock to make this more appealing to an international market. Vocalist Arnim Teutoburg-Weiss sounds exactly the same as every other generic American hard rock singer, without a trace of a German accent - and really, what s the point of that? Even the album art is based around U.S. culture, this sort of thing really irritates me. With a generous budget being allotted by record label Epitaph, the sound quality is impressive, even if the guitars are a little too polished and quiet to really be considered punk ...