Labels: Slave Union
Review by: Andy Malcolm
I haven’t written a review in pretty much a month, and have not really had a good record listening session since Christmas eve. Maybe I have forgotten how to
do this shit. Maybe I didn’t know in the first place. Probably the latter. Anyway, tonight I will drink a beer and bash some keys like so many infinite monkeys and attempt to dredge up from the depths of my memory the ability to review music.
Dear Tonight are a band utterly unfamiliar to me, but this 5 track cd which I
heard for the first time today whilst packaging packages has rather made an impression. The band play a pretty modern brand of emo / hardcore, and by that I mean more similar to bands on Level Plane than on Repercussion. The music is layers
of explosion and melody, with some excellent vocals that swerve between spoken and desperately pleaded or garbled with a gob full of marbles, that’s
something that will always go down well with me. Where DT differ from their mid 90’s forebears is that the guitar work is a lot more complex and perhaps
technical than is a standard for this genre, but they never veer off into the realms of guitar wankerdom that can plague bands who want to show how good they
are at instruments rather than knock you off balance with their vulgar display of passion and sincerity. Everything in these 5 songs is jammed with hard-hitting energy and often a tight groove that drives the songs onwards. What comes to
mind is an emo version of Light the Fuse and Run or later Books Lie, if you can evisage that. The label website compares them to bands I would never compare
them to for one second, but I find that happens a lot when I read reviews of records I like.
Overall this is a good solid ep. A 10″ would be even better, but music is music and if you are into the kind of emo/hc that Level Plane has released over the
past few years, then this is equally as good as much of their output.