If there is anything that Ashley Parker Angel has proven this past year, it’s that you can take the boy out of the boy band but you can’t take the boy band out of the boy.
The solo Angel has longer hair, a steady girlfriend and baby, but the core of his debut CD, Soundtrack to Your Life, are lovesick songs telling about life after O-Town.
One would think that after the short-lived fame of O-Town and Making the Band that Angel would realize that a TV show detailing his CD offers only short-lived fame; but he did not and There and Back, helped propel his single “Let U Go” to the top of the charts. His album, however, is not quite good enough to keep fans, new and old, satisfied past track five.
Giving Angel some credit, the first five tracks give life to an otherwise defunct CD. Besides ‘Let U Go’, the other four tracks are either about his path to a solo career or his girlfriend. The title track is an upbeat pop number that explains just what the soundtrack to your life is: “Your life is a flashback/ A question, a photograph/ A statement, a story, a struggle.”
After the first five tracks, the next two songs on the CD are painful to listen to and it took a lot of energy not to turn the CD off.
“Who Cares” gives the feeling of being in a drug-induced state during the 1960s and “Shades of Blue” is just a poorly written song and does not capture any of Angel’s talent.
The song “Beautiful Lie” offers a second wind to help get through the rest of the album, which needs all the help it can get. “Beautiful Lie” uncovers the truth behind the line, ‘I’ll never hurt you,’ and puts it behind a pop backbeat.
Another disappointment from the already unimpressive comeback album is the fact that there is not one power ballad, which is ironic considering that Angel was one of the lead singers on “All or Nothing” – still one of the most powerful ballads in recent years.
If this album is the soundtrack to Ashley Parker Angel’s life, then his future is looking bleak because only the first half of this CD is even worth a listen.