Tokio Hotel

Scream

[0.5/5]

Listening to Tokio Hotel’s Scream, a compilation of songs from their first two albums (which were apparently gigantic hits in Europe), one can’t help but feel a quiet storm of smug American pride welling within. For all the things we may do wrong on the world stage, rarely do we manufacture rock this jaw-droppingly lame. Apparently, German taste has gone to the dogs since the Scorpions: Scream is composed mostly of overwrought clunkers that sound like Jared Leto rewriting Skid Row ballads at a gooey half-tempo, and Tokio Hotel’s twin brothers Bill (vocals) and Tom (guitar) Kaulitz are a hamfisted Teutonic version of Nelson, only slathered in mall-punk eyeliner and lacking earnestness or a sense of kitsch. Almost too stiff to be funny, this might have been a surreal payday in the boardrooms of Berlin, but one presumes the buck stops here. (ISLAND) Jeff Leven