Labels: Tiny Engines
Review by: MH
This band comes from Santa Rosa and used to be called Brother Bear. Musically, this is quite frantic post hardcore with post rock elements. It is also a touch epic – the guitars soar at times although the songs are not overly long. Opening track “Sleepwalker” features end-of-the-world screaming vocals which are backed by almost choral gang vocals. It is short and ends abruptly before the drums kick in and the pace picks up for “Cities”. There is a bleakness to this album that is immediately evident and remains until “Skeletons” brings the album to a conclusion. The cathartic screaming is turned up to the maximum across the entire album and doesn’t let up. There is a second vocalist with a slightly more aggressive sounding tone too. I would like to know what they are raging about but there are no lyrics with the digital format. I prefer a bit more variation in the vocals as the desperation is there throughout. I would prefer a lessening of the production values too as they are quite high for this type of music. A little too over the top for my tastes but I like this more than I expected to. I didn’t have high hopes when I saw some of the recommended artists as the majority were for bands that don’t appeal to me. The nearest band I can compare this to would be Pianos Become The Teeth although I do think this is better “” at least the few tracks that I have heard from them. Most of the songs do a similar thing so if you like one song you will probably like the lot. I would pick out “Sleeptalker” as the standout. They seem to have a bit of a thing for wildlife sounds too as a few of the tracks have that in the background – birds chirping and the like.