Labels: Equal Vision
Review by: Damien Mills
“It would be just like you to bring your keyboard to a gunfight”
Equal Vision then, pretty much the only one of these ‘big’ labels that still has bands i don’t mind admitting to liking, Liars Academy, Bars, Bear Vs Shark and…Bane.
To be honest though, these days Bane is more like some sort of musical comfort blanket, they seem to have been playing out roughly as long as I’ve been following this Hardcore thing and I can’t imagine them not being around. I mean I still like a lot of their stuff and Bedard still writes great lyrics but it’s almost something I buy out of habit, or would of been if i didn’t get it free, obviously…
But onto the record itself, it’s pretty good like, sounds a lot like ‘Give Blood’ right down to the big shout along ending, which I suppose is what will be in future defined as thier ‘later’ sound. Other than that theres a few little twinkly bits thrown in and some incredibly whiny melodic vocals courtesy of the guitarist which should perhaps should of been left on the studio tape. Also for a record on such a big label it seems to have been mastered at an oddly quite level. In general though, once I’ve managed to get around the fact that along with the hugely inferior Terror they are the Myspace generations ‘old skool’ band of choice, I still quite enjoy ’em. Go figure.