Labels: Golf
Review by: Andy Malcolm
At last, I get to hear some stuff by Samiam, and therefore use their name copiously in comparing bands the do rocking emo-ey / pop punk. There are a good number of bands on comps that do this sort of thing, and maybe this is the sort of thing you might want to check out first to see if you like the genre or not.
There are 17 tracks 1990-92 on here, so it’s strictly early stuff, and I don’t know how they have progressed since then. It’s certainly more rock than anything else, but is done with a slight emo leaning. This is certainly something you will want to check out if like stuff like the Wildhearts, as you’ll love their approach to rock – explosive guitars and neat little touches endear the songs to you. There’s also some cooler punkier stuff, such as the faster “Slumbering”. Even then they still enjoy their big rockin’ guitar riffs too much to leave them out totally, sounding a bit like Whatever at times with their penchance for the occasional pompous moment.
Most of it though is that straight up rock music with emotive vocals, you can’t really go wrong with that, and it’s dead impressive seeing as this is what they were coming up with at the beginning of their career. It is slightly worrying when they almost stray into Iron Maiden territory with some of their 1992 period stuff, such as “Head Trap”, but you can forgive them the occasional cheese rock foray for their other cooler songs.
There are 3 dire acoustic style tracks towards the end though, skip over 14, 15 and 16. Yeuch.
If you are Samiam illiterate, then this serves as a good introduction to an important band, and will also provide you with some damn fine music to listen to as well.