Labels: ape must not kill ape
Review by: Andy Malcolm
Emo! And 6 tracks of it at 45rpm on this slab o’ vinyl. The Last Forty Seconds take their stylistic direction from the likes of Saetia, and for those who are gazing blankly at their screen after reading that description that means harsh screamo vocals over intricate and pounding hardcore. Fast rhythms, that familiar guitar sound (you’ll recognise it once you hear it), hectic drumming, with occasional breaks into slower territory. “I Felt A Funeral In My Brain” opens up side A with a relentless assault, bass and guitar crash into each other as the song hammers a long. “The Third Time Is Never The Charm” breaks things up by going much slower and letting the bass carry the song a long behind the pained screaming. “Number Eight” has a perfect old school twinkle intro, subtle yet menacing, with occasional bursts of noisier guitar, before breaking into the screams. Very Embassy-esque, with rolling guitars that remind me of Yaphet Kotto. Particularly awesome when the song slides off into the twinkles again towards the end before exploding once more. “My Favourite Actor” gets things going with another under-stated intro, the calm before the storm, which is a mid-paced angry voyage with lots of cool parts, including “screaming lots over just bass and a drumbeat”. Two more awesome songs follow that, “Cutting Down The Glare” will give you Indian Summer flashbacks during it’s painful death-throes, and things are rounded off on “Waking From The Dream Date”, resplendent in it’s dirty emo groove and temporary forays into spoken territory.
A great record of emo chaos, in fact, probably the best emo record of the year after the True North LP. Go give this a listen.