Labels: Engineer – Last Chance
Review by: Andy Malcolm
These chaps set their stall out from the outset. Big cheesy rock riffs, big cheesy ‘pained’ vocals. Big cheesy
post-hardcore. Total cheezeball all round then. Song two is exceedingly mature cheddar, with semi-acoustic
guitars and the guy all yelling, spluttering crumbs of brie out of the corner of his gob full of cheese. Then
song three is this big bland instrumental that they forgot to write words for. Hmm. I quite liked some of “All
Too Real” which has some nice, gently rolling guitar, and the vocals don’t sound so bad on this one, but it
wanders a bit aimlessly for the most part before they start grating the Red Leicester on the guitar strings. It
has a horrid atmospheric part at the end too. “Before You Breathe” has some nice juddery Braid style rhythms
that they add a slice of Leerdammer to, but I can’t abide the shouted vocals unfortunately, nor the “na na na na
na” bit. And what is up with applause at the end?! Best track is probably “Easy” which works the atmospherics in much better, the vocals are less upfront and the song floats along very nicely, kind of vaguely similar to the first Antarctica cd.
Neverthemore have some basic ideas down, but overall this CD comes across as more of a demo, a practice run,
despite the solid recording. The songwriting isn’t quite there yet, even for people who are fans of cheese-core.
I suppose if your idea of great rock music is bands that worship good but not great records such as Elliott’s
“US Songs” LP but can’t play as well as that, then you might like to check out Neverthemore.
I am sure they are lovely folks and they are trying their hardest and they love what they are doing, but I’m not
being negative for negatives sake. Unfortunately this CD just isn’t that good compared to other bands that have
played this music in the past 7 years or so. Sorry.