Labels: Old Glory
Review by: Andy Malcolm
Well this record fired something big home to me. The huge influence that Portraits of Past had. The drummer from PoP is in both these bands, and listening to this prompted me to dig out the PoP album on Ebu, something I had never gotten into before when I got it a few months back and played about 3 times. Listening to it now I am thinking: “woah, just how many bands have I heard recently that sound like this?”. Quite a few. But enough!
Nexus 6 are the first band here, they split up a while back, going on to form Funeral Driver. I prefer the Nexus stuff to FD’s, slightly shorter songs, something a little more exciting about them. They are rough and ready screamo, similar in sound to PoP mixed up with a touch Assfactor 4, and featuring some incredible drumming. Everything pounds away, fast and chaotic songs, hectic rhythms, desperate vocals. Opening track “Chameleon” just plain demolishes, totally punishing emo hardcore. At times they come up with a very heavy sound, without ever approaching metal, yet I like the slower parts on here also, a brooding noise over which the vocalist talks the words. Very effective.
Funeral Driver only contribute 4 songs. Their first one, “Lucky Strike” starts up with one of those meandering old style emo intros, lots jangle and twinkle, heralding the arrival of the noisier stuff. Which is pretty regular screamo if the truth be told. Not amazingly melodic, very fast, breathless screamy crying for vocals, and a whole heap of quirky rhythms and the occasional break. Not a bad effort, but not quite as good as you’d hope after hearing Nexus 6. The sound is a progression from that, but not in the way I was hoping for. Compared to a lot of this style of music at the minute, this sounds very flat, though “Choirs & Cannons” is a great song, similar to Yaphet Kotto in some ways. Overall though, I found this side a disappointment.
OK, so the record cover is the most boring layout of all time, but the music hits with force, particularly on the Nex6 side. Good record.