Thomas Ian Nicholas reviewed
Thomas Ian Nicholas
Without Warning
(self-released)
The fact Thomas Ian Nicholas played “Kevin Myers” in the American Pie movies shouldn’t lead you to disparage his music. (He was also in Radio Flyer, Halloween: Resurrection, and some “Party Of Five” episodes if you think you need extra help forming your opinion.) The songs themselves are ammo enough.
At its core, Without Warning is slightly macho, superficially brooding, adult-contemporary acoustic rock. Fair enough: If he reminds you of American Pie, you probably assumed his music would seamlessly fit the soundtracks. The title can be interpreted as “no warning necessary: What you see is what you get.” But get this: Members of Mighty Mighty Bosstones, Tonic, and Alanis Morissette’s band collaborated — but so did Vince Neil stand-in John Corabi and Kiss mannequin Bruce Kulick? Not that the two of them are Satan’s spawn, but in *Without Warning*’s context, they’d be Tom Araya and Glenn Danzig. The bigger mystery is deciphering what impact, if any, they had on Nicholas. If Corabi and Kulick did take up more space, maybe we’d have something to talk about. Or at least chuckle over.
No dice.
In the accompanying press materials, we learn Nicholas is a John Mayer admirer: “I aspire to be one-tenth of John Mayer. His lyrics are unbeatable.” O.K., so he’s going to pitch down the middle. His honesty offers us the chance to see what he hoped to accomplish and how well he does. But Nicholas, who started on music as an alternate means of expression, can’t hit the target even if you move him 15 feet closer. “Life has everything you’ve been waiting for,” he moans on the title track. Through a barrage of clichés and truisms “Less Ordinary” couldn’t be moreso, and “You Don’t Know” underlines (with exclamation marks) the album-long theme that YOU DON’T KNOW, O.K.? Never a payoff, Warning culminates in the grating “Cry While Smiling,” where all manner of tears-of-a-clown metaphors arrive with the telegraphed subtlety of Seann William Scott biting into a turd.
Maybe Tara Reid’s very-public, very live unravelling convinced him to run the other way. Unfortunately at this rate, it’ll be harder for him to get any more two dimensional than the characters he portrays on screen.
— Steve Forstneger
