Labels: Count Your Lucky Stars
Review by: Andy Malcolm
There’s a lot of mathy emo / post hardcore around at the moment and the Reptilian certainly fall under the category. They get their twiddle on early and often over the course of this 4 tracker, but manage to spice things up with the excellent, urgent vocals. Musically it sort of sounds like cross of Kolya and Hot Cross, with elongated songs spinning off in various directions whilst singer Jon Sacha rather nervously yells out in a distrinctive fashion. There are neat, jazzy inspired moments such as on the grooving opener (which has way too long a song title to reveal here), and I feel that they succeed with these more than they do with the more rote math / post rock parts. I also was partial to the sort of sci-fi sound effects that they sprinkle in towards the end of “So… what are my torso options?” (yes, this band are rather fond of wacky song titles I’m afraid).
Overall this is a good blend of late 90s and more modern takes on emo and math, and I think this will go down well with a number of people who don’t really know it. This band seems to be somewhat under the radar at present which is a bit of a shame, as despite my often recounted misgivings about mathy stuff, this is far beyond the dross perpetuated by bands like This Town Needs Guns and their UK cohorts in squeezing all the fun out of music. I think as a four tracker, this goes well – it would also have made a fine 10″. My patience may have been tested over a full length but here is doesn’t outstay it’s welcome and there are several smart elements to the music that keep my interest.