Our contemporary fixation with things that refuse to go away, like zombies or vampires, seems appropriate when listening to Back to Me.
This is not the first album from Howie D, who is also a member of the active Backstreet Boys, but it is his first solo album.
Like the Backstreet Boys themselves, his appeal is still firmly anchored in the early 2000s. Listening to Back to Me induces mild confusion because it is on the whole entirely redundant.
It plays out to be merely a continuation of the "B-Boys" sound made smaller and with a minor update, a point further reinforced by the collaboration of fellow B-Boyers Nick Carter and John Secada.
Comparing Back to Me and the most recent album from the Backstreet boys This is Us is a waste of precious study time, because there are almost no noticeable differences.
This in itself is maddening, as Howie D shows little ambition to explore or cross genres and instead ends up, musically, inches from where he started.
To call this disappointing would indicate there was a level of expectation, but whatever the feeling it is certainly soured by the promise of what could have been.
Apparently Howie had stated an interest to make an album entirely in Spanish, hoping to channel his inner Ricky Martin and honor his Puerto Rican roots. His insidious management team, however, had a quick word with him, pointing out the fatal flaw in such a daring lyrical shift; namely that his Spanish wasn't very good (How was he supposed to do interviews?).
Thus, we are unfortunately left with Back to Me, which isn't, to be fair, bad per se, just dated.
At one point in time it might have been able to hold its own in the hearts of teenagers, but, in 2011, Lady Gaga, Rihanna and Hip Hop in general already have that space staked out.
The first song in the album, the first single to be released and the highest achiever chart-wise (in Canada, at least), and coincidentally his best song, is "100."
It's a catchy tune — "100 kisses girl straight to your heart / 100 ways to show you that I need you" — sung with gusto over a reliable electro-pop accompaniment and a snappy snare.
"100" has an edge that no other song in the album is able to replicate, an up-tempo false promise.
Most of what follows falls into the range of either melting into a shrill formless puddle or skipping along anonymously over generic synths.
The impossibly cheerful "Dominoes," upbeat "Shatter Proof" and satisfied "This is just what I Needed" are good representations of the latter. While the torrid never-ending "Lie to Me" or slow and boring "Stay," the former.
Clearly the titles were chosen to prevent subtlety from seeping into the lyrics. Howie does finally get into his stride in "Way to your Heart," which feels like it has a more contemporary pop sensibility to it.
The synths and beat are kept simple and sharp, and Howie follows suit with his pleasant anonymous vocals that don't overdo it.
"Sleepwalking," a slow moving ballad, starts out strong when it stays mellow, but then goes the opposite direction and immediately loses its appeal when the vocals pick up in intensity.
"Pure" was co-written with Nick Carter, and is one of the better songs in the album. Perhaps because it was written with a fellow B-boy, there is a certain throwback feel to it, a combination of the harmonized vocal pyrotechnics and the complete omission of the now omnipresent "featuring" rap artist.
The production in almost all of the tracks doesn't seem to be from the past couple of years and the timbre of the synths and the drums sound like they belong to the turn of the millennium.
In "Going Going Gone" any hope that Back to Me is doing anything but treading water is extinguished exactly at the point when the background vocals, reminiscent of a certain boy band, kick in towards the end.
