Labels: self released
Review by: Danny Parsons
Apparantly post-rock influenced screamo isn’t dead! StapH play some of the most convincing instrumental screamo I’ve heard since god-knows-when. This EP has a total of three songs on it and boy do they rage! The first – ‘Harvest’ – is the shortest of the three and reminds me a bit of Pyramids first album – ‘Following the Tracks, Forcing Motion through the Phases’. Plenty of screamy sobbing and a truly super emo chord progression to finish the song off. The second track is without a doubt my favorite track on the EP. It’s all a bit dirgey at the start with a shed-load of fuzzy distortion and wailing. “A million people!” (or something like that) is what the vocals go like – ‘powerful’ stuff I’d say. It soon veers off into post-rock territory and amidst the plethora of instrumentally-inclined screamo bands that seem to be knocking about these days, this song marks STAPH as one of the best (judging by this first release anyway). Near the middle of the track (it’s a pretty long ‘un) it all gets a bit Rachels (albeit a bit heavier sounding) which is a first as far as this type of music goes! Anyway, the layered skramming soon rears it’s head again. Real pretty stuff. Much of the same for the final track; Pyramids, Pyramids, Pyramids with a nice Daniel Striped Tiger-esque bit in the middle.
I really quite like this band. This release only came out this year and already I’m hyped for more. Quite impressive stuff for a first release.