Wilshire's "New Universe" is an unremarkable place filled with the mundane and mediocre.
Wilshire is the kind of bland band that was made for every easy-rocking, easy listening, garden-variety, run-of-the-mill, standard radio station out there. Their music has no effect, and it has no impact. The album sounds like plain yogurt washed down with flat soda.
The name Wilshire comes from the band's two members: Lori and Micah Wilshire. Perusing www.cdnow.com, one can learn from their fans that Lori and Micah are "like the cutest couple ever."
They may be cute in concert, but on the cover of their new album, which looks like it's been ripped straight from the pages of a J. Crew catalog, they don't wear happy adorable smiles. They display somber demeanors in an effort to show how seriously they feel about their music.
The first track off the album, "Special," hints at their Christian rock roots but is anything but special. Every song that follows has the same simply flavorless appeal.
Wilshire didn't title every song the same though, but instead chose the most generic, ordinary, clich?(c)d titles they could think of. "Nothing Left to Lose," "Without You," "In Your Arms," "Remember" and "Tonight" are just a small sample of their humdrum musings.
Reading over the lyrics of Wilshire is like reading the longest eighth-grade love letter in existence. It will also result in the discovery of three tracks with the word "fool" in the chorus, all referring to a variation of love-sickness.
The seventh gem of the album, "Fool For You," contains these creative lyrics: "And I would be a fool for you/ I'd do the things you want me to/ Like a jester in your court of two/ I just wanna be a fool."
If the pithy writings of the dynamic duo can't reel the listeners in, Lori's screeching caterwaul is sure to snag 'em. Her voice could best be described as an awful attempt to combine the powers of Faith Hill, Gwen Stefani and Fiona Apple into one. They mix as nicely as water and oil.
Wilshire's unoffending, jejune and indistinctive style represents everything that is wrong with music today. One fan on the Web site summed up the exceptionally moderate band perfectly: "They are not too loud, they are also not quiet, either."
Photo: Courtesy of Laron Fomby
