Labels: Ed Walters Records
Review by: Andy Malcolm
This is not the best release on Ed Walters lately. Or maybe it’s pretty good but it’s just not the sort of thing I am into. I guess I quite liked the first Great Clearing Off song (and I like their name), it’s urgent pop punk with emo parts, and also a guitar solo thrown in for good measure. It has those traditional old pop punk nasally vocals and they play pretty quick and have lots of familiar pop punk riffage exploding everywhere, I expect they would be pretty decent live, jumping around and stuff. By the way, I don’t mean pop punk as in the Get Up Kids or whatever. Just making that clear. I guess I just mean punk rock that has a melodic edge. The second track is faster, dirtier and pretty angry sounding. Vocals are snarled and it’s a lot less melodic. I like the shouty backup vocals. I think it’s ok.
This is not the best release on Ed Walters lately. Or maybe it’s pretty good but it’s just not the sort of thing I am into. I guess I quite liked the first Great Clearing Off song (and I like their name), it’s urgent pop punk with emo parts, and also a guitar solo thrown in for good measure. It has those traditional old pop punk nasally vocals and they play pretty quick and have lots of familiar pop punk riffage exploding everywhere, I expect they would be pretty decent live, jumping around and stuff. By the way, I don’t mean pop punk as in the Get Up Kids or whatever. Just making that clear. I guess I just mean punk rock that has a melodic edge. The second track is faster, dirtier and pretty angry sounding. Vocals are snarled and it’s a lot less melodic. I like the shouty backup vocals. I think it’s ok.
The Sound of Failure play some kind of metally stuff that makes me think of a tame One Eyed God Prophecy. They have the riffs but it’s not powerful enough, at least, not on this recording. The vocals are kind of garbled and fit well. It has a decent enough groove but isn’t quite as thunderous as I like this style to be. Oh well.
Anyways, this is the second in the ‘Sea of Steel’ series for bike punx, so if you are interested in bikes you should check this out anyway for the inserts and ideas because it’s really posi. And if you like the bands then you’re doing even better into the bargain. Overall, I would say this release was fair musically, but nothing staggering. The real substance is in the words in the booklet.
The Sound of Failure play some kind of metally stuff that makes me think of a tame One Eyed God Prophecy. They have the riffs but it’s not powerful enough, at least, not on this recording. The vocals are kind of garbled and fit well. It has a decent enough groove but isn’t quite as thunderous as I like this style to be. Oh well.
Anyways, this is the second in the ‘Sea of Steel’ series for bike punx, so if you are interested in bikes you should check this out anyway for the inserts and ideas because it’s really posi. And if you like the bands then you’re doing even better into the bargain. Overall, I would say this release was fair musically, but nothing staggering. The real substance is in the words in the booklet.