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Stir - Holy Dogs

No stars

With their sophomore album Holy Dogs, St. Louis- based "rockers" Stir seem to have sensed a deep-seated and growing need within the American music-buying public - the need for music with all the sonic attributes of Christian rock, but with secular lyrics.

The album features song after song of jangly acoustic guitars, nerdy drum beats, politely distorted electric guitars and soaring vocals - all the hallmarks of a DC Talk or Geoff Moore and the Distance album, but without those pesky religious references.

Guitarist, vocalist, and chief songwriter Andy Schmidt is responsible for a good deal of this mess, crafting metaphorically confused songs that exploit the tired formula of soft verses/loud choruses. His earnest lyrics and super-inspirational vocals are laughably inane, and the band doesn't help matters out at all - the rhythm tracks are lame and lifeless, with no fire or drive whatsoever.

It seems strange that band members could live through the 1990s and yet not pick up on a trace of the irony that so marked that decade. Yet Stir seems to exist somehow outside the boundaries of time and taste, making music that would have been uninventive and boring in any decade. It is hard to believe that any band, especially in 2000, could write and release a song called "Velvet Elvis" that is completely free of irony or cultural commentary, but Stir is living proof.

Actually, they may be somehow self-aware. On the album's closing song, "Holy Dogs," Stir seems to realize that their time in the public eye may be limited, as Schmidt belts out "Goodbye for a lifetime/ goodbye/ I cross the finish line, it's over."

Not a moment too soon.