{"id":41339,"date":"2009-02-06T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2009-02-06T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/reviews\/serial-thrillers\/"},"modified":"2026-07-25T07:31:32","modified_gmt":"2026-07-25T07:31:32","slug":"serial-thrillers","status":"publish","type":"review","link":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/reviews\/serial-thrillers\/","title":{"rendered":"Serial Thrillers"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"MsoNormal\">It\u2019s nice to know that, while the earthy low-fi indie singer-songwriter vibe remains ascendant, there are still indie acts out there whose personal groove is all about hitting you with The Big Riff.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">Serial Thrillers is an album I reviewed by accident, plopping it in and letting it ride through my subconscious for half an hour or more before I really sat up and took notice.\u00a0 No doubt one of the explanations for that is the production \u2013 crystal-clear enough to earn the title of both blessing and curse \u2013 of Anthony J. Resta (Collective Soul, Duran Duran, Shawn Mullins, Perry Farrell).\u00a0 Whether the songs are post-grunge guitar-heavy alt-rock (\u201cThe Cycle\u201d) or more introspective and spacious fare (\u201cForgive\u201d), there isn\u2019t a molecule of sound out of place.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">Much of the credit\/blame there must also go to ST mastermind vocalist\/guitarist\/bassist\/chief songwriter Paul Ortolano, whose earnest, appealing melodies remind me a bit of <a href=\"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/reviews\/bringing-down-goliath\/\">Second Dan<\/a>  in both their moody duality and their fundamental expansiveness.\u00a0 To their credit, Ortolano, Resta and drummer Stephen Clements throw some interesting electronic textures into otherwise by-the-numbers cuts like \u201cMiss Black &#038; White\u201d and \u201cIf Ever,\u201d which help rescue them from the rather clich\u00e9-heavy lyrics.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">Those quibbles aside, though, let\u2019s be clear &#8212; Serial Thrillers has appeal, or I wouldn\u2019t have made it this far.\u00a0 The album\u2019s kickoff one-two punch of \u201cDefied\u201d and \u201cUnattractive\u201d are engaging and well-crafted, transitioning seamlessly from breezy pop melodicism to arena-sized guitar muscle.\u00a0 There\u2019s more goodness in the late going as well, as the steady-as-she-goes \u201cBolder\u201d and rather Rush-divided-by-Tool closer \u201cRex\u201d underscore Ortolano, Clements and Resta\u2019s gift for crafting tasty big-sky guitar-pop. <\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">Serial Thrillers raises expectations with a name that\u2019s only somewhat justified by the end result.\u00a0 That said, there\u2019s a core of melodic appeal that\u2019s undeniable.\u00a0 A little less calculation and a little more true grit and Serial Thrillers could be onto something big.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":29735,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"artist":[8340],"rating":[5615],"class_list":["post-41339","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-serial-thrillers","rating-rating-b"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/41339","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=41339"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/41339\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":52089,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/41339\/revisions\/52089"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29735"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41339"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=41339"},{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=41339"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=41339"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}