Labels: self released
Review by: Oli Saunders
I saw these guys play about a month ago and they gave me a copy of their first demo and this new demo. They play a sort of art punk or post punk, in which the instruments have that modern Dischord feel and the singer yelps, snarls and shouts away over the top. The vocals are pretty distinct and two members of the band chip in with backing vocals on occasion. I’m really not knowledgeable on this style of music to be honest so I’ve having difficulty comparing them with other bands. They get described as Sonic Youth esque punk on lots of their flyers, I wanted to avoid this but can’t come up with anything better, it’s got that experimental punk vibe with plenty of angst.
The tracks on both this and the first demo have enough variance to not get boring and I really like the contrast in song structures. On this release the first two songs are quite fast, track three ‘When Under Ether’ is then a lot mellower with sung vocals for the most part. The fourth song returns to quick fire punk with some interesting out of breath vocals at times, before the final track ‘ Other Voices, other Rooms’ which is a seven minute epic. This is definitely my favorite song, lots of variation and changes in tempo. Some nice audio samples and spoken words in between the vocals.
Whilst the EP doesn’t blow me away it’s solid and very good in places. It’s well crafted, with two inserts and lots of nice DIY touches. Overall I’d say the band have a lot of promise, they have mostly played gigs in South Wales and are looking for shows elsewhere. So give them a listen and it would be nice to see them them getting a bit more attention around the UK.
18th July 2009