Labels: Abitbol – Desormais – Respira – Theatre
Review by: Oli Saunders
It’s a little sad that new screamo jawns are coming at me from all over the place 24/7, yet the only place I can share my excitement about them is on the internet to a few people who give a fuck. I guess that’s the case for quite a lot of us that enjoy niche areas of the DIY music scene. It kind of sucks at times. Some towns manage to get emo / screamo scenes going to some extent but Bristol for sure is not one of them. Of course in other ways it’s great that not a lot of people are into it. It certainly feels more personal, and it’s great to make friends with people dotted around the world who share similar thoughts and ideas. You just don’t get that in any area of popular music.
Here I have a promo CDr for a split between Taciturn and Anemone. It has been released on CD and 12” by four labels. Taciturn’s songs are first, sounding a little like The Third Memory. The band started off as a metalcore band and were pretty bad I think, ripping off lots of other metalcore bands but not particularly well. Now they rip off lots of screamo bands but I think they do this reasonably well. It’s not in the same league as the great French bands such as Jasemine and Ivich, but it’s decent. I would say they have potential, if they tried to be a bit more original and played their own stuff passionately they could be really good. You don’t go from making metalcore to screamo to make money or fans so I think their heart is in the right place. Tracks one to six all sort of sound the same but are solid, not keen on track seven but it’s alright in places. Finally track eight is eleven seconds and seems a bit pointless.
Anemone play five songs after this and I would say similar things about them. Again it’s decent stuff but I like any kind of music with a bit of melody, chaos and high pitched shrieking in it. There aren’t many Swedish screamo bands so it’s nice to have this one, I see some influences by bands like Suis la Lune as well as a clear European screamo underpinning. Not sure what else to say, it’s split that I enjoy without being blown away by and I’ll probably buy it on vinyl. I think both bands might have split up now too but I can’t find any kind of words from the bands themselves to confirm this except for writing that they are dead on their myspace pages.
22nd July 2009