Labels: Star 13
Review by: Andy Malcolm
Well, the first of my emo history lessons are beginning to roll in. I’ll be putting up reviews on maybe a couple of others if I think I can justify them. This arrived a long with an Antioch Arrow compilation, which is pretty crazy, chaotic stuff! And I’ve also tracked down where I can get a Fuel anthology, cheers Ian.
Six songs on here, covering 55 minutes. Woah! I am not sure as to when this dates to, hence I have no qualms on doing a review, and these are all songs recorded from a session performed for a Californian radio station. And what can I say? Exhilarating stuff, it’s emo as fuck! Heh.
Mostly the songs are long, rhythmic efforts, that ebb between pretty and soothing to aggressively driving moments of pure, quaking energy. Vocals range from quietly sung or talked to full on desperate crying and screaming which really takes a hold of me. During the quiet parts of the songs, you can hear what I presume is a tape playing music from the 20s or 30s I guess, it’s really neat and adds to the whole intimate atmosphere of the thing. Listen with headphones for the full effect, but don’t be surprised if you find yourself utterly transfixed by the thing, especially at instances like when the first song descends and spirals around and around in some kind of organised chaos, before breaking down and mutating into something entirely different.
Highlight for me is the epic final song, which doesn’t even kick off for 4 minutes. It then slowly awakens from it’s slumber with some of the most stripped bare and beautiful guitar I have ever heard. It gradually slow-burns it’s way a long, before exploding into life and later bringing in those heart wrenching, mournful screams, then winding down again and eventually roaring back towards the huge climax at the end of it’s 15 minutes of glory and pain. I’m in full agreement with the radio announcer who comes back at the end and says with a sense of awe “Truly incredible….Indian Summer”. Safe to say, I never heard anything quite so powerful before.
I want everything this band ever did, but I guess that’s just a dream. This’ll have to do for now.