Unwritten Law, Music In High Places

By Adam Goetz

Music in High Places is an earthy unplugged series on MTV that brings prominent artists to exotic ancient locations, which led to Unwritten Law being asked to play a set in Yellowstone Park for one of the first episodes. The album’s twangy folk sound is a definite deviation from their pop-punk roots, but it does show a new side to the band. Production wise, the disk is rich and the song dynamics themselves are perfect, so you don’t get any of that live album grainy garbage. Most of the tracks are from their most successful album, Elva, but they also play “Before I go” and “Cailin” from their self titled album and “Shallow” from their debut, Blue Room.

While the new sound is a welcomed change, it can’t cover up the fact that all of the songs are still trite and repetitive, leading to a mediocre (at best) disc.