Ah, a Rites of Spring covers 7inch. First in a series (of five I think). A buddy of mine told me his band got asked to be on this but he just couldn’t conceive doing a Rites cover, heh! Now Rites don’t mean half as much to me as they do to so many, but I picked this up as I appreciate what they did and there are two bands on it that I am into. The Landscape do a good job with ‘Spring’, inserting elements of their own sound into Rites’ and carrying things off pretty well. It is speeded up, modernised, and the vocals are more distorted and hidden behind the wall of sound that the guitars create. The Landscape are pretty good at this covers game because their song on a Jawbreaker tribute cd I have to review is rocking too. Good jawb! The Diner on the other hand, well. They take a stab at ‘Deeper Than Inside’, and to be honest this blows me away with its suckiness. It’s slow paced, has electronic noises in it, the vocals are a bit too much in that harsh sass ballpark for my liking and it never gets going. I am not really sure what they were trying to do, but it doesn’t click at all for me. Shame!
I don’t know if I am going to pick up all of this series, but anyway. This is interesting, and if you are a fan of the bands involved and of Rites of Spring, then check this out.