Labels: Artskool – McCarthyism Records – Waking Records
I think this is the first material from the Fiction since their solid, but not particularly spectacular LP that came out on Level Plane. And I have just attempted to play their side on mute. Score! A blank record. Ok, let’s try again. The Fiction have two songs of emo type goings on. “A Strange Case of Lemmy Caution” comes out quickly with fast and thrashy guitar and hoarse vocals, before slowing things down into more of a chug, and then dropping in a really nice twinkle finale with distant screamed vocals and subdued spoken parts too. Very nice. “Inside Outsiders” which accelerates and has a nice melodic groove. The song again has some cool subtler touches and makes good use of varying the pace of things at times. I really enjoyed their stuff, definitely a good progression from the LP.
Birthday Boyz are new to me, and they sing a song about Michael Jordan, and play it in an emo fashion. It has a really special buildup, starting out with gently twinkling guitars sounding all sombre and pretty before it bounds into ferocious screaming action. It’s mid 90’s emo in the vein of stuff like Breakwater and all the other bands that knew how to mix up wonderfully melodic stuff with crying and frantic guitar playing and falling on the floor. It seems a bit weird that they would scream so much about Michael Jordan but hey. I like this a lot, especially the pulsating ending.