Labels: Broken World Media – Dead Flowers – Major Bear
Review by: Rob Mair
Blessed with one of the most uninspiring names you could imagine (I mean it doesn’t really conjure up anything other than still water “” and that’s just, well, dull), things don’t get off to the greatest of starts musically either for this Pennsylvanian quartet.
Opener “Before I Leave’ is a scratchy and messy affair, and arguably the weakest of the songs on offer on this EP. So, with expectations suitably dampened, what follows is something of a massive surprise. “Bedfellow’ is a much more coherent, Braid-lite slice of Midwest-inspired emo, with excellent duelling vocals, off-kilter breaks and moments of wonderful tautness.
Fortunately, the other songs on this seven-track debut stick much closer to this blueprint “” and better still “” they carry it off in style. Sounding not unlike a more direct TWIABP, there’s plenty of nods to the post-rock scene, and it would be interesting to see if this is the route they chose to go down, as the likes of the outstanding “Samantha’ or “Sleeping Away the Storm’ “” which probably marries the genres most successfully “” marks these guys out as ones to really keep an eye on.