I’d like to introduce a new, recurring, feature to RockBandAide… weekly DLC reviews! For the 10 of you who read my old blog, The Rock Hero, then this is essentially the same thing I was doing there, just on a different website. For the rest of you, the basic concept is simple. I play through the DLC on each instrument, and write my personal thoughts on how they play in the context of the game. I’d like to stress that there are my personal feelings on the gameplay and that they may differ from yours. Feel free to say what you thought of the DLC in the comments and without further ado, here’s this week’s review for Daughtry 01!

“It’s Not Over”

For a relatively slow song, it’s actually got a guitar part that, while not overtly hard, doesn’t become boring. The song’s main riff is comprised of some moderately paced HOPOs that, while aren’t very difficult to hit, are fun to play. The chorus features a series of chords that won’t really test the skills of a seasoned player, but once again, can be fairly fun to play. Then there are two solos in this song, the first of which mostly comprises of single notes with the occasional HOPO thrown in and the second one is pretty similar, just a fair amount more difficult. I personally found the bass on this song to be rather boring. Sure it’s got a few strings of HOPOs put in so that there’s a bit more to do, but overall there isn’t much going on here. Dedicated bassists should probably stay away from this one. The drum part was predominately a standard rock beat with the occasional fill thrown in for good measure. Nothing overly spectacular though but you drummer probably won’t be whining if this song comes up.

“No Surprise” (Pro)

The guitar part here was fairly average. An easy, slowly paced, series of 2 and 3 note chords kicks this song off, followed by some moderately paced notes, alternating over a few different frets. Then comes easily the most enjoyable part of the guitar track, a series of quick single notes with some HOPO chords thrown in as well. Unfortunately, this part doesn’t last all that long before going back to being boring. The bass here was incredibly easy as well. I was able to FC it on a sightread, only up-strumming, and that virtually never happens to me. So yeah, it’s pretty easy. Most of the song is just slowly paced single notes with the occasional HOPO thrown in. If it wasn’t for Dog Days Are Over a few weeks ago, I’d put this song down as one the worst bass of the year. Keys, for the most part, were fairly boring. I say for the most part because there was one section where the keys part just goes into all out craziness across the keys where it just becomes a slew of notes on the green, yellow and orange keys in a zig-zag pattern. Outside of that part though, there isn’t anything really that’s special about the part. Drums, like It’s Not Over, followed a standard rock beat, with a couple rolls here and there. Also like It’s Not Over, this was my favourite part of the song.

“Crawling Back To You”

The guitar here was pretty solid. Nothing phenomenal by any stretch of the imagination but nothing too horrible.  It starts off with a bunch of steadily paced chords, along with some single notes thrown in there as well. Then it goes to some slowly paced single notes that aren’t too hard to hit, throwing in a couple HOPOs here and there. The song just basically repeats these sections until the song ends. Nothing too bad but nothing overtly exciting either. The bass was, again, not bad, but not great either. It was merely OK. What the song does have going for it is that the bass part is filled with strings of HOPOs that keep the part from getting stale. Probably the best bassline of the week. Keys, like the other instruments, were just OK. Nothing phenomenal but nothing that horrible. What this part does have going for it, however, is that there aren’t very many empty spaces, something that can happen with lower-tier keys parts. Outside of that, there isn’t anything too notable to speak of for this keys part. This was probably the best drum part of the week, because while it’s still a standard beat, the fills and changes are a lot more in this song. As someone who doesn’t really enjoy drums, I found myself enjoying this part quite a bit.

Pick of the week: Crawling Back To You
What you should buy: Unless you are a Daughtry fan, I’d skip this week.

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