Labels: self released
Review by: Oli Saunders
I’ve probably mentioned this before but I absolutely adore demo tapes. Self released, harking back to the days before CDs, personally made, rough recordings, and the beginning of an adventure for a new band. This tape looks really great from the offset – simple and cheaply made but neat – a paper lyric sheet wraps around the tape, whilst the cover is a single piece of stamped cloth. Good start.
Beau Navire play frantic post Witching Hour screamo. It’s pretty violent but there’s a lot of melody going on too. And lots of fairly slow parts, as well as personal lyrics and occasional spoken word. It’s not greatly original but is not too generic either and is well done. There are not many new US screamo bands playing this sort of thing these days so in this respect Beau Navire are pretty rare. They are compared to Loma Prieta and L’antietam, who have both been about for a while. Apart from Parrhesia and a few others that I forget this genre has seen a decline in recent years. Though random bands such as Straight, No Chaser occasionally crop up out of nowhere; I guess in the UK we are not following the scene as closely as we should.
Overall this is definitely worth checking out if you still yearn for this kind of music. ‘Diary Of The Sun:’ is a highlight – abstract spoken word about birth that gives way to screams, whilst the instruments remain very melodic. This would crush my soul live. Keep an eye out as the band have a number of vinyl releases on the way, including a self released 7” and 7” split with Suffix.
April 6th 2010