Labels: Scene Police
Review by: Ian Cavell
It seems as though Rydell have a million and one releases out at the moment. This particular one is a split CD put out by the scene police label (you know, the one that seems to coexist in two different countries). And while the whole package looks beautiful I can’t say that I’m totally blown away by the music contained inside.
For starters I’m sure Rydell have written better songs than these. There are three tracks included here and none of them are a patch on say ‘Try 17’ or any of the songs from the earlier Tour CD. Yes, they are jangly, melodic, nice etc. But for me emo-rock has to have a little more drive and on this CD Rydell seem to be stuck in first gear. They’ve also made the mistake of messing up the vocals BIG TIME on ‘dreams and lines’ by switching vocalists on the last word of every line. Its hard to describe it but trust me – it does not work.
Hunter-Gatherer have three songs which are a little more interesting although the Hot Water Music aspirations are obvious. Imagine the emo-rock of the ‘Music with the emo in the driving seat and the rock providing the directions. Anyway the first song is fairly solid, the second is pretty good but the third song, ‘in stained-glass waiting’, is fucking excellent. Starting off with the mellowest of mellow parts the whole thing just glides along blissfully until a neat vocal only part. Which in turn gives way to big, crunching guitar blasts and leaves me with a satisfied grin. Yeah!
Hunter-Gatherer, ones to watch. Rydell, please try harder.