Labels: Lilac Sky
Review by: Andy Malcolm
This 7″ was jointly released by a bunch of labels which I think is a great thing – splits costs quite a few ways and must really help with getting music out. So hurrah to the folks involved here! One of whom is Lilac Sky records, who always appreciate the fact that I think their “…And There Were Tears In Their Eyes” compilation 12″ is one of the worst records ever made! Cheers Kjetil!!!
Anyways, the Union Policy play pretty straight forward melodic hardcore, which I didn’t realise I still liked. But obviously I do, because this record is cool. There are 4 songs of rock on here, and I’d peg them as being somewhere between Lifetime and Dag Nasty for the most part. The vocals are packed with a lot of passion and there is a lot of frantically played guitar. Very catchy, probably be fun to see live I reckon – they have bags of energy and probably jump a lot. They do have a kind of 80’s emo-ish feel to things as well, especially on the intro to “Dancing With Knives” (though I am less sure about the rock guitar part on this one!) and “A San Francisco Romance” which is definitely my favourite of the 4 tracks. “Lights Out” has talky bits and was reminding me of Kolya up until the superbly melodic chorus kicks in. Great twinkle / rock mix here!
If you like good honest tuneful hardcore stuff that you can bop about to rather than flail, you will probably enjoy this release. Nice surprise for me.