This one has been out a while, but I’ve only just recently acquired it (money going missing and such other fun…), and I wasn’t even sure I was going to bother picking it up as the Montcalm mp3 that I had heard was a tad on the generic side. Luckily though I threw caution to the wind and wind was gracious enough not to blow said caution right back in my face for once.
The four Montcalm tracks on this lp are just fantastic, they play a heady mix of frantic and screamy emo – elements of late 90’s bands like Saetia and mid 90s bands like Mohinder combine to create an exciting spazz out. High energy melodic parts cascade into the breakdowns and the misery, just like you’d expect, and their sounds (the guitar and drumming) reek of classic emo. They’ve obviously done their homework! Track 2, confusingly entitled “Four”, has a gorgeous twinkle build up befitting of Indian Summer, swaying gently from side to side with spoken vocals completely buried in the background. You can’t hear a word of it unfortunately. It then builds up to the crying and the guitars drive on in – “While reaching for a star in the night sky i got too close, i burnt my hand on the most beautiful of constellations” – what did I tell you, emo as fuck! The song following this has a mega breakdown where they do that thing where they just play twinkles and the dudes all run away from the microphone and cry a lot in the distance. I love it when emo bands do that. The final track though totally reminds me of Swing Kids, the lyrics are ‘”sorry,” you say “it’s over” and it rather sounds like Bluenote where he goes “sorry to say but it’s not over”. Puzzling!
Dead Seraphim are on the other side and they heart Reversal of Man and Jeromes Dream by the sound of it. Nothing wrong with that, but I wasn’t into it too much. 6 tracks of mega spazz emo violence. High pitched screeched vocals, brutal drumming and furious rock. They mix things up though with the occasional melodic break, which works pretty well. I think they have the styled nailed, it’s just not the sort of thing I want to rock out to lately.