Labels: Russian Roulette
Review by: Joe Caithness
I was surprised when I heard this band for the first time, for some reason I expected another Saetia clone, maybe I just have low expectations of UK emo/hardcore stuff at the moment. But this is definitely not a second rate screamo band. Pictures Paint Words come from the lovely county of Warwickshire, just like me, and it’s comforting to hear a 7″ that I am genuinely impressed with, and I don’t mean in the context of their geography, I mean in general. Yes, it does sound like Braid quite a lot, but I think this Braid/Cap’N Jazz-esque sound has been done so many times now that it has just been accepted as a style of this area of music and the “clones” are not so much ripping off their influences as much as taking their own personal spin on what they have listened to.
Anyway, four tracks here, first one is nice and upbeat, it keeps the 4/4 theme all the way through and never does anything too technical, just sticks to the hook and does it well, nice. Track two I had heard previous as an mp3, and I understand why they put this on their website, this song is very good, lost of attention to detail here: even a glockenspiel solo, very cute! Time to turn the record over.. right side 2, track 1, now they are really going with the melody, this tune uses a nice minor edged scale at the start and works around that scale with some cool offbeat guitar stabs, then in the chorus goes all cute, awww. Track 4, final track, opens much quieter than the other tracks, seems like a bit of a wind down from the rest of the ep, drumming goes in and out of some cool waltzy rhythms over the lightly strummed riffage: it’s a nice way to end a really good EP. I am really liking this, if you live in the UK, or like Braid, Cap’n Jazz or the like, get your arse on their website, send off your money for this, its a bargain at 3.50 post paid off Alex in the band.
I should also mention that with the 7 inch you can also get a free CD version of the EP with an extra track, huzzah!