Labels: Frenetic Records
Review by: Kunal Nandi
This is class in a glass, but for some reason, I’m not feeling it quite as much as SOY’s 2002 album “Check The Sound”. Maybe it’s due to that fact that now I’ve made the mental connection between SOY and Hot Snakes (with shades of Guy Picciotto in the vocals too) I’m finding it tricky to shake off. This could be pure thickness on my part because the two bands are very different beasts, what with Hot Snakes being more along the lines of melodic punk ‘n’ roll, whereas the Science plough a much darker furrow. They may both be making Drive Like Jehu-esque frenzied, panicky hardcore, but SOY is light on the melody, big on the screaming and heavy on the chaotic riffery, or at least they were on their first album. “Don’t Panic” has them lightening up a little, introducing more of a rocking sensibility in the rhythms and bigger, catchier guitar lines at times, but it does more or less speed by like the previous album, wtih eight songs in 20 or so minutes, a sudden morass of punk-edged noise, fury and fun. They’re even more blazing live too.