Labels: Electric Human Project
Review by: Andy Malcolm
This is a pretty solid split record, with an original touch in the packaging. I’ll come to that later, as it’s always more important as to how it sounds, not looks.
All I Ask went on to send some members to form Orchid. Intrigued huh? Well, All I Ask isn’t on a par with Orchid, but not much is. The song they have here starts of with a long, dark, emo-ish intro, building up the pressure which the band eventually releases in some pretty standard screamo that a lot of bands do. Harsh vocals, choppy time-changes in the music, a few chaos influences and one or two metal elements are there, like Orchid, but all in all this is just not quite so amazing as that band. Twice, the singer shouts “1, 2, 3, 4!” which I like. But yeah, this is not bad at all. Just not amazing.
Joshua Fit For Battle look like they tear it up live. They also have a brooding intro, slightly more twinkly, but if you’ve heard enough screamo records, you’ll know what to expect. You hear a lot of songs that do this. It’s very nice, I like to sway to the intro. Then the screaming hits in, and they do it very well indeed. Able to stop on a dime and switch from the churning guitars to the mellowed out parts, they certainly have this style nailed. Saetia, with perhaps a bit of Portrait is the not so shocking comparison I’ll make. But I do like this track very much, my prefered of the 2 that feature.
Throw in some nice orange (gold?) vinyl, and the lovely packaging whereby you have to untie some string to get into it, and you have a very worthwhile package. Check this out if you want to hear 2 cool bands doing screamo. Solidly. And support this record label too – future releases feature the Swarm (RIP) and the particularly fantastic Neil Perry. Oh yes.