Labels: asymmetrie
Review by: Oli Saunders
Previous GSLG! recordings consist of a demo a few years back and a split with Me And Goliath two years ago, so these new tracks are very much welcome. I have always enjoyed this band and in my opinion they are one of the best of the recent surge of German emo with clear indie and post punk leanings. Bands of a similar style include the Solemn League and the Rabbit Theory; GSLG! definitely have some influences of Kids Explode and Shokei going on too.
GSLG!’s first song ‘Last Train to Chessie Chain’ kicks off and it’s definitely a good ‘un. The band have mellowed a bit – things are much less frantic and the vocals are more sung and less shouted – sort of spoken at times too. The songwriting overall just seems to have gone up a notch from before. Their second song is also solid, whilst the third is a nice instrumental bit, before they launch seemlessly into the final track ‘Mountaineer’. The song drives along and is possibly the best of the bunch, despite being a bit more basic in structure than the rest. Dual vocals, lots of great melody and a good finale. I’m pretty sure if you like the aforementioned bands or groups such as Tubers then you will enjoy this.
Petethepiratesquid play on the second side. In all honesty I had not heard about them for so long that I thought they had broken up. Good to see this is not the case. I remember seeing them a few times when they toured the UK a few years back; they were pretty great every time. Here they still have their trademark sound – dual male and female vocals are the top of jangly guitars, but they’ve definitely moved on to new slightly more experimental territory. They pull out a keyboard on a couple of the tracks. In some places it seems more pop like than before whilst in others far more progressive. Not many bands sound like this so I would certainly recommend checking them out, particularly if you like their previous output. Overall a solid split put out by Asymmetrie, worth investigating.
25th July 2010