Now this is great stuff. Matthias Weeks singing on a record again like he sometimes did in Current. Calvary is kinda melodic post-punk sorta thing, sometimes early 80s in style – I don’t really know too many bands from that genre, but I’d say at times it’s like a cross between early Wire and Mission of Burma, a long with Moss Icon circa ‘It Disappears’ and Current! Which is a fucking great combo, don’t you think? Although I am being beatdown by my dismal musical knowledge, because I am pretty sure that it’s influenced by a much greater range of bands than that, having seen what Matt lists on his playlist on the Council website.
Anyway, these are fast, quickfire little tunes, demo quality production and Matt doing singing and talking over the top. Opener “Worth A Thousand Dark Words” is extremely catchy and has a great danceable groove to it, really tuneful and it gets the head nodding. Then there is “Heart Murmur” which is just over a minute long and thumps a long in a rocking fashion, whilst “Relevant” is dark and brooding and very mid 90’s emo at times! I think it’d be quite difficult for anyone who has ever listened to Current to get past Matt’s vocals here as they totally hark back to their records, and that’s a good thing, but don’t just get caught up in that fact – the music is great too, and pretty different to the C for the most part. The final song on here, “Reluctance, Insertion, Regret” is from the forthcoming LP and it really beefs up their sound so you can hear exactly what this band sound like with more production. It is recorded much more loudly than the other songs and veritably crunches out of my speakers in an extremely rock fashion, the guitar sound on the more melodic parts is supreme. Awesome!
Great lil CD, the LP will be fantastic I reckon!