Favorite Track: "Samantala"

I love albums with a lot of variety. And though not veering away from a common sound, Citric Maple achieves just this - variety in their songs - in thier album "Comic Book Superhero".

I admit that I don't know shit about Citric Maple: Never heard them play before, don't know thier type of music, don't know how many they are and who they are. I don't even know what compelled me to buy the album in the first place! Maybe it was the bright yellow layout of the album calling to me. Maybe I was curious of the funny title. Whatever it was, at least I don't consider it a waste of money buying the CD.

Reading the back-sleeve of the album, the band explains the concept of the album as a collection of songs about the things we experienced as kids and songs about growing up. I guess this is what makes the album have some variety to it, just the mere fact that as a kid and as a growing adolecent, you experience an immense amount of emotions, and Citric Maple does good in capturing these emotions and turning them into songs.

Musically, the album is by heart a diverse rock album as with the tracks "Screaming", "Cockroach", and "Nuclear Man". Then there is also the alternative infuence with "She's Not There". But the band has also seemingly drawn influences from new wave as shown in the tracks "Le Amour" and "Peanuts". What I love the most musically about the album however is that last two tracks - the only tagalog tracks in the album: "Samantala" and "Panaginip" literally warped me back to the days of the mid-90s when kalye rock was in high swing with bands such as Yano, Afterimage and the Eraserheads!

Lyrically, the band actually does what it claims to do. You have songs about the mundane things such as flying cockroaches, the serious things like the pangs of growing up, the usual topics about falling in love and of course the fun stuff like... comic book superheroes!

This album has the works: The girrty and edgy, the soft and mellow, the punky, the alternative, the sentimental and classy. The band pretty much does a good thing in this CD. Nothing spectacular though, but still a good CD to pick up if you have the time and money.