Review by: Oli Saunders
Three bands from Spain playing Euro-style screamo. I welcome it with open arms, maybe you will too. First up it’s Gone With The Pain with three tracks. These guys are my favourite out the three. Fast paced jangly chaotic goodness with great shrieked vocals over the top. I really like these vocals, I can’t make any kind of sense out of what he’s saying but it makes me happy. They don’t mess about, it’s all about quick fire emo violence. Actually that’s not quite true, there is a hand clapping part halfway through the second song and everyone gets in on the screams. Not a fan of this kind of thing to be honest, but on just one song I can put up with it. Their final track also slows down at the end and gets all melodic – this is also something I can put up with in moderation, in fact I quite enjoy it here. The band have a few other releases (some also released on Astoria) in which they play very similar sounding songs. I am told they are currently on hiatus after one of their guitarists left.
Next it’s Reaction Reaction!. They have a similar kind of sound, a bit slower, more melodic, and the vocals aren’t quite as high pitched. You could probably pick out some of the things the vocalist screams about if you speak Spanish. Three songs from the band, the first two are standard screamo, the final track tries something a bit different. It goes for a dual vocal approach and the guitars really work well around it all. It’s a bit epic in the same way that the final orchid songs are on their first two full lengths. Really like this song, probably my favorite on the split, and good stuff overall.
Finally, there are two songs from Under The Waves. They are slower again and have deeper vocals. Not sure about their first track, it’s seven minutes long but I never really get into it. There’s a long instrumental part in the middle of the track which is fine but it’s not really what I’m looking for. The second track is better but I don’t feel the intensity that the other two bands have. Overall it’s nice and maybe if I was in a different mood I’d enjoy it more.
In summary, if you love all manners of European screamo, particularly other Spanish screamo stuff like Enoch Ardon and El Eje Del Mal, then you will enjoy this split. For other more picky fans of screamo I would expect complaints about genericness, which is certainly understandable. Personally I have found out about a lot of bands from Spain recently, including the three reviewed here and others such as Craneo, Costacurta, Heads And Heads and Ciudad Del Cabo. It’s nice to see and if you like screamo I’d certainly advise checking all of them out.
2nd May 2009