TheSTART Ciao, Baby

music review

TheSTART
Ciao, Baby
2007 Metropolis Records

Los Angeles based indie band TheSTART has just released their third album Ciao, Baby. While the previous albums Shakedown! and Initiation skillfully combined pop, punk, dance, industrial and new wave, Aimee Echo and Jamie Miller have changed their tune and their tunes slightly with their 2007 effort. The self-produced album features a stripped down, straight forward new wave sound that still occasionally bounces back to TheSTART’s signature industrial layers and crowd-pleasing pop roots.

Positive Elements

“Runaway” states that hard work is the key to success and that nothing is free. Aimee Echo admits that there are no excuses for her sins and negative behaviors and that her sins have left her spiritually bruised.

Spiritual Content
A romantic partner is described as sucking a woman’s soul. The singer asks her lover to “purify my endless sin” and seeks redemption and salvation from this obviously flawed person. On “Millionaire” singer Aimee Echo talks about selling her soul in exchange for romantic love and states that God has forsaken her. Echo states on one song that nothing can bring her down from the heights she’s reached and that Hell’s flames cannot touch her. A lover is described as a “demon in disguise.” Sex is described as a miracle.

Sexual Content

While there is no graphic sexual content on Ciao, Baby, almost every song on the album revolves around romantic relationships, specifically failed romantic relationships.

Violent Content

“Blood on My Hands” and “Runaway” mention shooting loaded firearms, breaking bones and blood as metaphors for a failed romantic relationship. One song mentions a revolution and contains the repeated refrain that Paris is burning. War and battles are used as metaphors for intimate relationships.

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Drug or Alcohol Content
Two songs mention empty bottles or the singer’s laments on the negative results from drinking and alcoholism.

Crude or Profane Language

Ciao, Baby features almost no swearing whatsoever. The word “tool” is used as an insult.

Other Negative Elements
Many songs reference lying or dishonesty within relationships, often as putting on a mask, a disguise or a front as a way to escape from negative emotions. “Just a Fantasy” is a song filled with loathsome insults and disparaging comments toward an ex-lover.

Conclusion

Lyricist Aimee Echo unfortunately seems to revel in misery and sadness, almost to the point of pride. She wears her broken past and romantic failures on her sleeve and crafts virtually ever song around the themes of dejection, misery, rejection and pain. It seems that Echo has at least discovered half the truth; that a life of sexual hedonism leads only to pain. But she has yet to learn the converse of that lesson; that Christ’s love can liberate us from the cycle of pain and that, ironically, serious commitment to a monogamous partner is truly emotionally liberating. While Christians will experience the emotional wreckage of failed relationships, they need not dwell on that pain as we can always find joy and real redemption in God’s love. For teens, the pain of a breakup or rejection is magnified by the stress of major life changes, and during that tumultuous time teens need to take comfort in God’s love instead of putting TheSTART on the stereo and dwelling in their pain. Full of darkness and misery, this is one album that your family should say ciao, auf vedersain, goodbye to.

For More on TheSTART visit their website: www.thisisthestart.com.

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