Labels: Golf
Review by: Russell Opie
Don’t know how to classify this. Ummmm – how can I describe the sound. Now I’m gonna have to be very careful here. Imagine a generic loud punk-rock guitar and drum sound, with shouty Radiohead-esque lyrics and some metal thrown in for good measure. Then maybe you will get something that vaguely resembles this album.
While this band have written about 3 songs out of the albums 12 that are quite catchy and have ‘sing-a-long’ potential, you’ll find yourself trying to figure out what he is saying during the rest of the songs. Which is a bit of a shame – because the band has a good guitar sound. Its just from my current musical standpoint I would prefer something a little more vocally melodic. Not that of course everyone else feels this way.
This is ‘background’ punk music – if such a thing exists. You put it on the CD player and it plays – and its just there. It doesn’t leap out at you and slap you in the face. I need something that has a bit of a tune to it. Something that you can at least tap your feet to. But this album struggles to do that for me. Although there are some standout tracks, namely : “Beacon” which has a catchy chorus and “Eggshells” which is also quite tuneful for a Shutdown song.
You may get the impression that I am heavily criticising this album. Not really true. I think its just not as instant as I would like music to be right now. Its loud and its shouty (which can be good) – but its a bit average. Maybe it will grow on me and maybe one day I will appreciate the highly experimental genre of : ‘hardcore-Radiohead-punk’ a little more.