Labels: Sickroom
Review by: Andy Malcolm
I suppose I had better review an emo band or people will start grumbling “I thought Collective was a hardcore zine mutter mutter”. Ok, Ten Grand is the Vida Blue reborn under another name, and surely you know why their name is different by now, if not, too bad. Anyway, they have mellowed out very slightly from the frantic spazz of the first two LP’s, there is no screaming on here at all, although musically it is still mid-paced emo-ness the riffage and ominousness (huh?) of sound kind of makes me think of Slint, whilst the vocals are still highly distinctive and really make this band stand out. The whole thing is perpetually brooding with a dark aura of scariness, like it is suddenly gonna blow up and destroy you, yet, rather like Slint, it never quite errupts into a full bore emotional explosion. The only bit of this I didn’t like was when it went spacey and the guy started singing like he had been castrated. Weird. Whatever, this has the muddy hardcore production that you are expecting and overall I would say it is fantastic. I hope there isn’t a backlash here, this is top notch but people will whine that they suck now or something I bet. As I said to my good friend Steve C when I was talking about people whining about insignificant problems in the computer game Championship Manager other day: “It’s not like Hot Cross stopped being a screamo band”. Please note sarcasm.
As for Mike Lust, well, fuck this shit.