La Quiete - Catena Collapse - split - 7

Labels: Adagio830
Review by: Andy Malcolm

My humble apologies for the lack of reviews lately. Various things have conspired against them appearing. But now they should be making a comeback, although it’s almost Christmas, so maybe they’ll go on holiday again soon. Who knows. Not I! Here is one though. A split 7″ of two European bands being really good at their emos. Ace.

La Quiete may be a band that you are familiar with. If you are not, and you like bands that cry and scream and play galloping melodic emo guitars and they go all cute with the twinkle, then forsooth! You are missing out. La Quiete is the great! They have three songs on here, two are resplendent in their dishing out of fast melodies and harsh, screamed vocals. Sandwiched in between is a nice, but ultimately un-necessary, instrumental. The emo style that they bawl is reminiscent of my favourite frantic French (go aliteration) stuff, i.e. bands like Jasemine, addled with a more modern chaotic hardcore approach. And it verily works. Nice. Track 3 breaks down with some piano and the singers going ARRRRGH! RAAAAA! and WAAAAAAH! over the top. Fantastic. This is why someone invented emo, so that emo kids could do this kind of thing without feeling silly.

Catena Collapse is a band you may well be less familiar with. Cosy up to them, they rock. They start with “Elektra Boogie”, where they kick off with some fantastic melodic emo with build ups and desperate vocals, they groove like fuck. This is seriously gorgeous, taking the mid 90’s sound and doing something really good with it. “Hand to Hand Resuscitation” has a similar period sound to it, very deliberate and with a spoken vocal part. It is great to hear European bands doing something that doesn’t involve sounding like Orchid. Catena Collapse impress a great deal on here, I hope you will like them as much I do.

Two really good bands on one super DIY 7″. Hurrah is the operative word.