Labels: Run for Cover
Review by: Joe Callaghan
By Jove! Whilst this new, hip, mathy “emotional rock’ phase isn’t completely my thing, there’s a couple of bands that are phenomenally embarrassing the rest of the genre by simply being light-years ahead of everyone else in terms of sound, structure, and not purely being another carbon copy. The conclusion is an amalgamation of what all these new bands are attempting to produce with underwhelming, disheartening results, often displaying infuriating technicalities and complexities, or just being far too corny to even remotely take seriously. This direction is always going to be a little tacky and transparent, but Transit try their utmost to keep it to a minimum, and it gets within touching distance of being pulled off. They lose their stranglehold by unsurprisingly rounding this neat little EP off with an acoustic track which builds up into a penetrating rock anthem. It’s stuck on the end, and it’s easily ignorable if you so wish, but in the grand scheme of things, it’s not really that bad. I’m not opposed to anything acoustic. I just lack any fondness for loud bands stripping down for an acoustic song. It’s irrational, I know, and there are unexplainable exceptions to my rule, but I was just exasperatingly mentally prepared for it to end on a “slow one”. And it did. Being able to predict the next part of a record that is completely new to me either allows the bands formulaic nature to blatantly shine through, or it convinces me that I am fully within my limits to see into the future. Superpowers aside, this is a fine effort from a band who are almost promising to continue to be head and shoulders above their counterparts. Whilst the instrumentation is “busy’ and often fiddly, it doesn’t agonisingly stop and start before a good thing gets going. It takes equal parts of aggressive skate punk from the mid 90’s along with dynamic contemporary hardcore punk, and it has managed to just steamroll its way through their try-hard equals. It flows; the hooks seize you by the lugholes and vehemently hold on tight for around 20 minutes. The intricacies unify within the structure blissfully, which in a modern era of overly complicated bands with not a tune in them, it is a breath of fresh air that the balance of song writing and just plain showing off has finally been tamed. Comparing this record to its instant comparatives bears greatly in the favour of Transit. Polar Bear Club tick all the right boxes, but the current of complexities falls extremely short. The cartoon heavy-metal breakdowns of Set Your Goals, along with their efforts to turn hardcore punk into some kind overly patronising musical episode of Playdays kicks them right out of the boat and into the sea. Transit swerve all the right obstacles and have managed to nail an overly tawdry style of “punk’ with dignity and flamboyant panache.