Labels: Struggletown
Review by: Andy Malcolm
This is a handy little 3 track CD from a band that is new to me, though it says here it is their second release. They play a nice brand of chuggy melodic post-hardcore that was all over the shop in the late 90s, but has been horrendously out of fashion ever since. I am fairly sure they all are super excited about the Texas is the Reason reunion shows and probably have a good cry over US Songs every now and again, and this is certainly in the same vein as that, though it maybe reminds me more of Stratego, who were basically a lower-fi Texas is the Reason anyway. First song “Stop Hiding” gets off to a great start with a lengthy intro, some really nice backing vocals drifting in and out and contrasting with the main guy’s intensity. The Scottish accent really shines through on this recording, sounds great. However, the song falls down a bit for me when they slow it down, seems like it should just last a few seconds before blasting back but instead it draws things out then heads into another section that doesn’t really fit with the rest of the song before eventually kicking back into the chunky riffs that define this sound. “Faultlines” dawdles a bit out of the blocks, seems uncertain where it’s going before flying off the handle, the vocals are much more frantic. Again the song seems to move through a few disparate passages, not always flowing as well as it could but on the whole it’s nae bad (did I do it right?). They round this off on “Weight” which has a nice slow start. Sounds like a different singer? This might be the pick of the bunch for me, the slowed down pace works really well with the dual vocals. Once more they do something a bit weird though, as at the 3 minute mark they ruin the flow with an abrupt stop and start playing their guitars like car horns or something, then it has a post rock crescendo to finish.
Solid debut, maybe just needs a little sharpening up with the song writing as each song had parts that felt off to me, but I think this will appeal to a fair few. Hopefully their cancelled Norwich show gets rearranged and I can go along and chest tap a bit.