Crikey, this is a distinctive looking record. Suffice to say you’ll not accidentally flick past it if you ever find it in a distro or some random record store. Anyway, this is the latest outburst from the ultra hip (and deservedly so) Kodan Armada, and the sadly deceased Montcalm. Kodan dispense with two songs on their side, the opener “No Has Never Had Three Letters” being the pick of the pair with it’s deliberate building up and emo stylings – moving on from the subdued intro into two chaps intoning their spoken vocals over the brooding guitar and shimmering drumming. You can feel the intensity building, the guitars twinkle gently, yet somehow menacingly too. Suddenly it picks up the aggression and erupts into power and desperate screamed vocals. As the song grooves towards its finale, they throw in some sung vocals too in a Yaphet Kotto fashion. It’s nothing you haven’t heard done before by the likes of the Vida Blue, but for any self respecting emo dork, this is the good shit. Wasn’t impressed with the 2nd track, “Bullshit Buffet” which is quickfire screamo chaos. Bit messy and too metally for my taste, more in line with this bands older stuff that I remember first hearing and not enjoying last summer in MP3 format.
Montcalm dish up an epic slice of killer emo on their side, it’s their last ever song which is enough to make you sob as much as their singer does on “I Stopped Believing In Existence”. It rolls along amidst a flurry of melodic guitar and crying, dipping into parts with awesome sung vocals, then falling out totally into the twinkly bits where everyone stops tugging their t-shirt and contemplates their shoes. There are spoken vocals hidden away in there somewhere I think. Then it all builds back up into the grooves and falling over parts. Holy cow. It’s too good. Those sung parts. Sheesh. It calms down and drifts towards a really nice finish too. It’s all very emo.
All around a mighty fine split. Plenty to read with this record too, which is a bonus.