Astoria

Astoria is the fourth album of Canadian band Marianas Trench. It is full of over-the-top dramatic kind of pop/rock music. Almost every song is sung in falsetto with much and much too much sounds and instruments jammed in it. Also the music sounds cheesy, slick and commercial, while the songs are ok, but not groundbreaking. If you would ask me what kind of music I don't like, the answer would be this record.

Really not my cup of tea. It’s massively over-the-top, cheesy pop-rock that feels more like a modern-day boy band with guitars — huge vocals, harmonies, orchestration and key changes all dialled up to 11. The production is undeniably good, but it all feels so calculated that I struggled to connect with it. I can appreciate the production, but after an hour I was more than ready for it to end.

The saddest part of this album isn’t the bargain-bin GarageBand instrumentals, the generic songwriting, or perhaps what is some of the laziest, rock-bottom lyricism on the list – it’s that you can tell the band is so wholly convinced that the music they’re making is good. The whole experience sounds as if every boy band was fed into a meat grinder and the most basic, sinewy threads of what came out were used to produce a whole hour of saccharine pop schlock. Reeks of commercialism and label plant origins, sad that I’ll never get those 57 minutes back.

Very very average nothingness

When you're living through it, it's sometimes hard to recognize the distinct sound of the current era. I feel that way about the 2010s. This album, however, is such a concentrated dose of 2010s styling that it feels almost like pastiche. The music is technically well executed, but a bit theatrical for my tastes.

Not as bad as other reviewers make it out to be, not especially good either. If you like the music of ”The Greatest Showman” this probably rocks.

The result of that one weird time when P!nk, Queen, Fall Out Boy, and Disney heroes 'n' heroines got together for a kinky time together. This thing popped out 9 months later. Musical, sure, but Good God is it overdone. Glossy sheen with zero rough edges.

one of the worst albums of all time... the fuck were you thinking?

Started off on the wrong foot because the Apple Music link took me to the “Astoria (Instrumentals)” album. Wasn’t minding that but seemed like background music. Now got on the right album with the lyrics and can say it is much better!I love the idea of a Goonies concept album, and would expect some 80s-sounding theatrical cheese in such an endeavor, and Marianas Trench delivers. Fortunately, I enjoy musical cheese quite a bit so this is in my wheelhouse. Ambitious and a lot of fun!

Not bad.

Album 666 is probably metal as hell right? Wrong. Theater kids did a thing that gives me like Goofy Movie soundtrack vibes for some reason even though that's wrong

What if the band Fun. were Canadian? Well then you’d have this album. And if you are me, then that’s great!

This is pretty fun and hits an INXS/Prince/boy band vibe. Only points deducted for too much falsetto but they found some unique songwriting approaches.

I didn't care for this at all. Reminded me of those bands that were popular back in the day like Hootie and the Blowfish, or Train. There's nothing I can point to that is bad with what they're doing, but it just comes across as lacking substance, soul, and heart. 2 stars.