Labels: Stickfigure
Review by: Joe Caithness
In the modern world of screamo the odds on the bands thrown at you over the net not sounding like one of the 400 split 7″s of the stlye you already own and forgot about, are going down. But Blame Game remind me this style is live and kicking, it’s evolving, its getting better, you just have to be patient enough not to be put off by the internet hype generation of hardcore. Along with Angora Static, Off Minor and La Quiete, Blame Game are my personal hot tips for which screamo bands you will listen to this year and remember in three years time when everyone listens to dutch punk revival bands…
This CD includes everything they have done up to the present day on a decent recording or which has been released on vinyl. I’m not 100% sure of the releases included here but it does included the Blame Game 7″ and the split with German metallers Zann. I also think there is a demo on here.
I love this CD, it is the best new music release I have heard all year by some way, you can listen chronologically backwards to a soon to be influential bands discography hearing the tones/melodies/structures evolve (or devolve, or something!) into the amazing punk-jazz-spazzout of Blame Game. The first 6 tracks have a story behind them, the story is this… The band were going through some line up changes with members wanting to pursue other musical interests, but they had material written, though some had not been played live much. So they rushed into the studio before they “broke up”. Luckily, the band did not break up, and – even better – this material is mindblowing. It is a hard describe little document of music, if you understand how the sound Gravity Records influenced the emo/hardcore come free jazz found on the Zann split, it is basically the same but implying that they sat down and thought “how could we make this incredibly difficult to follow but amazingly sublime when you just turn off and enjoy it” : because that is what they have done. The melodies on this new material drift between jagged dischords and sweet open strum modern jazz wierdness, the drums poke around the free jazz influences and drop into insanely fast hardcore without even batting an eyelid, the vocals are still screamed but more controlled and vented towards the issue the bloke is singing about than the material on the 7″ and prior.
This is amazing, pissed off with screamy hardcore bands all sounding the same? Annoyed that bands either sound like Orchid or mad at mid 90s emo clones? Bored that all bands that stop and start are claimed to have jazz influences? Listen to mothertrucking BLAME GAME!