A self-released EP, Orchard Hill’s ‘Make It Out Alive’ comes with a surprisingly American sound for a quartet from Oxfordshire. With some tough pop-punk/emo chops and a first rate production job from Ben Humphries [Maximo Park] and John Mitchell [You Me At Six], this debut is incredibly professional. For the genre, you’d be hard pushed to find a better sounding release from bands with ten times the budget at their disposal.
Category Archives: Album & EP Reviews
PINEAL – Smiling Cult EP
Putting it bluntly, Pineal aren’t exactly shy with regard to their core influences on this release. Although their recording budget occasionally shows a few limitations, this London-based trio really love Alice In Chains. Their stock riffs are never a straight up reconstruction of the AIC sound, though, since most of the heavier elements are more of a doom-rock persuasion, much slower in pace than AIC at their most sludgy…and certainly much heavier in many respects. Any Alice In Chains homages are due to Daniel Murney‘s vocal style which – in more than a few places – really taps into Layne Staley’s trademark spooked out, nasal croon.
MIDNIGHT PLAYLIST – Built To Break EP
London’s Midnight Playlist are a four piece alternative pop-rock/pop-punk band, who bring a strong sense of good times and youthful spirit on their debut EP ‘Built To Break’. There’s a real energy present from the very beginning of the opening track: a door slams, voices chatter, an amplifier buzzes…and with that, the quartet burst into life. That opener ‘A Year In Hell’ mixes pop-punk guitar chords and an alternative rock spirit, like a DIY collision between early Sum 41 and Don Broco; it’s a performance on which drummer Atish really excels. Twin guitars chug and thrash in classic punk-pop style – even making room for a couple of lead flourishes – while lead vocalist Aaron cries each line with confidence, all the while happy to let his natural accent through, despite the attempts of a few vocal filters to make his voice sound more generic to the musical style. You’ll have heard this sort of thing a thousand times before, but there’s an energy and tightness here – even obvious despite the limited recording budget – that makes this tune very enjoyable all round.
JET BLACK SEA – The Path Of Least Existence
Jet Black Sea is an experimental, extra-curricular musical outlet for a couple of cult figures associated with the prog rock scene. Nine Stones Close guitarist Adrian Jones and his band producer Michel Simons created the project in order to create music that stretches beyond the parent band’s more direct progressive rock and metal sounds. Stripped of all vocals and the most of the crunchy guitars heard on many a Nine Stones Close recording, there are still some meaty sounds present and a few rock influenced passages, but Jet Black Sea’s core sound is almost ambient in comparison. Not necessarily ambient in the true “Eno/Music For Airports” sense, but definitely more chilled out. Naturally, there’s still a great deal of prog at the heart of their music – given the pairing’s usual musical outlet, that is unsurprising – but it is prog rock in a much more minimal sense, although ‘The Path of Least Existence’s broad soundscapes rarely sound minimalist in their overall vision. An hour’s worth of instrumental sounds float by without ever resorting to self-indulgence and a stronger focus on keyboards brings a very cinematic feel to proceedings throughout.
THE CREEP VOID – The Elevation Of Idiocy EP
Hailing from England’s North East, The Creep Void are an independent rock band trading in some great post grunge and alternative sounds. While the core of their work owes a debt to the nineties, the quartet’s 2014 EP ‘The Elevation of Idiocy’ isn’t just a throwback to times of khaki colours and plaid shirts. There are certainly a few unavoidably grungy elements within these four tracks, but the song writing and tough sound places them firmly in the twenty first century – ever looking forward as well as drawing from their classic influences.