Labels: Time Bomb
Review by: Dan Baker
When SDRE released their third album there were a million bands who sounded like them, so thank god they released a cd that didn’t. I was curious to see what they would do next with their fourth (4 full lengths? well that means that by definition they can’t be emo) album.
The first thing that caught my eye is that they use the same type face as on the Diary cd which thought that maybe they had returned to their original musical style too. And, well, i was kind of right. they are definatley more rock, but not really very emo. The first song begins with a riff worthy of Bon Jovi and the second song is pretty similar. Even the more mellower songs like ‘Rain Song’ and ‘the Ocean’ use none of the predicatable crap you would expect from an emo band, they are just lovely songs. Even Jeremy’s voice has changed, he is much less whiney and miserable than before. They obviously spent a long time on this album, they use so many instruments and the production is so perfect it makes every instrament come out so lucidly clear, and this is all without a bass player too.
What i have always liked about SDRE is that they were never afraid of not using cliches. Though there are a couple of bland rock songs that bore me like ‘Fool in the Photograph’ and ‘Television’, some of the songs fill me with a wonderful transcendental feeling, especially the incredibly layered sounds of ‘Tearing in My Heart’, ‘Faces in Disguise’ and one of my favourite SDRE songs ever, the title track ‘the Rising Tide’.
So SDRE are back, as if they ever went away. This is the masters showing their pupils how to do it, lets hope they listen this time.