Labels: self released
Review by: Joe Callaghan
Scotland’s quite good at doing emo, and its affiliated genres. There must be something in the water that makes them great, yet hard to book and prone to splitting up a short while after their inception. This is a good start anyway, and sounds much more accomplished than I expected. It spreads itself widely across the board, and engages razor sharp angular twanging into delay soaked shimmering in the flick of a hi-hat. It’s difficult to pin down and even more difficult to familiarise yourself with it. I especially like the vocals, as they shift between singing and shouting patterns. The yelps sound almost off-mic, which I always enjoy, as I envisage it to coincide with bro-hugging and the beating of chests. Then they crush that imagery by returning to the singing like choir boys. It all sort of reminds me of Kid Crash, yet a little bit more rabid than New Ruins, though not as relentless as Jokes, but equally dissonant and disjointed. Native also spring to mind, but I personally find Native irritating to listen to, as they build up awkward ideas that go absolutely nowhere, where as Pensioner show progressive and flourishing song writing, which makes this demo sound very accomplished and incredibly promising.