The Dangerous Summer - Reach for the sun

Can a band getting their name from an Hemingway novel really be bad? It's at least not the case for The Dangerous Summer. The Maryland's quatuor had offered us one of 2007's most promising EP's with 'If you could only keep me alive' and release today their first album.

Produced by Paul Levitt who, between a lot of others, has worked with Dashboard Confessional and All Time Low, 'Reach for the sun' is closer to the moving simplicity of the first than to the pop-punk hits of the second. The album is catchy but not over-made, over-produced or too sugary. Transitions between songs are fluent and choruses don't brutally cut with the rest of the compositions, not limiting the songs' interest to a few seconds of melody. The tracks are quality songs and have been taken care over as a whole, not only living through their chorus. The Dangerous Summer navigate between pop-punk energy ('Surfaced'), pop-rock compositions ('Weathered') and alternative rock melodies ('Where you want to be'), in the style of their influence Third Eye Blind. Harmonies are soft but poignant, as for example the wonderful 'This is war' which will appear among the best songs of the year. Guitar parts often sound alike but don't make the record redundant, on the contrary they give it a strong homogeneity and regularity. We find a certain "atmospheric" aspect in the riffs and better dynamics in the drums' rhythm. Where the EP failed, the album succeeds.
The domain where the band excels is however the vocals and lyrics' one. The vocal performance of A.J. Perdomo is full of sincerity and emotion, without necessarily going near the annoying moan. He has a distinctive way to start some sentences that works every time and he manages to convey a positive energy, relayed by his lyrics' optimism recounting many hard times of his life: "I really think for once that I can change / It’s really not that bad / I’m learning now that I was wrong in everything / And that’s the reason why I think that I can grow". The song 'Permanent rain', already featured on the EP, differed much from the other tracks and has more its place here. We can almost touch the sincerity of the young songwriter (he is only 20) when he is singing "I wish it was me in the car that day", the song dealing with the loss of one of his friends. The singer entirely bases his songwriting on his experience and his past, which gives him a huge emotional strenght. The lyrics aren't necessarily deep or exceptional, but their sincerity and the sweet nostalgia radiated by some songs ('Reach for the sun') will touch every listener. Simple but passionate. The record suddenly ends with a cry from the heart of Perdomo: "But it's worth it / To never feel alone", in the style of Emile Hirsch's character in the movie 'Into the wild'.

The Dangerous Summer offer us a solid and quality album. It is not rambling with a hit here and there, but smooth and consistant. The songs sound alike at first sight and the record thus needs several listenings to grow in you, but they are worth it once you will prick up your ears to them.
Real and fresh, brimming with honesty, 'Reach for the sun' is not "fun", it is good and beautiful. Ideal for summer, yet you won't play it around a barbecue with your impeccable suntan friends, but rather in your car facing the sunset, just like its wonderful cover. Within a genre suffocated by bands only thinking about partying, an album easy to listen to while being smart won't harm the FM waves.

4/5

Recommanded if you like:
The Starting Line, Valencia, Over It
Check also:
Dropout Year, Driving East, Parade The Day

www.myspace.com/dangeroussummer
(Hopeless Records, 2009)

The Audition - Self-titled album

The alt-rock outsiders of The Audition come back only one year after the release of their second album 'Champion', with a promotion boosted by the shivery clothing brand Glamour Kills (which created the incredibly creative artwork) and the presence of Mark Trombino (Blink-182, Finch, Jimmy Eat World) as producer.

The first good point is the improvement of Danny Steven's vocals. His frontman's status suit him perfectly now, leading his band confidently on stage as well as in the studio. Notes are held and his voice has a certain groove that it's hard to ignore. Hits are here too: 'My temperature is rising', the first single, sexy-oriented (it seems like an habit, as the previous album's one was called 'Warm me up') with a dancing beat and a catchy chorus and the slightly more aggressive 'The running man'. Other good song, 'Sign. Steal. Deliver.' closes the album on a more original note, letting the musicians express themselves more.
The rest is quickly summed up. 'The way you move' sounds much like 90's rock, 'It's gonna be hard (When I'm gone)' is the typical US rock ballad heard hundreds of times whereas 'Los Angeles' reminds Taking Back Sunday's modern rock. The whole is catchy, upbeat, poppier and well produced. Trombino seems to have focused more on the band's sound quality than on their ability to make the most of their musical potential.

The Audition undeniably have something different from all those sugary, Glamour Kills-labelled bands, not locking themseves in an easy pop-punk, but don't manage to emerge above the average. Lyrically, it stays mediocre and deja vu. The majority of the tracks having a strong «arena rock» appeal, there's however no doubt that 'Self-titled album' will be well received by all those who will go to see the band play.

3/5

Recommanded if you like:
Sugarcult, The All-American Rejects, Taking Back Sunday
Check also:
Envy On The Coast, Tonight Is Goodbye, The Graduate

www.myspace.com/theaudition
(Victory Records, 2009)

Closure In Moscow - First temple

Closure In Moscow is a young australian band formed in 2006 by five friends from Melbourne. They quickly attracted the attention of their american peers of Saosin for whom they opened on their continent and were then featured in Alternative Press magazine. It takes nothing more to the label Taperjean Records (Limbeck, As Tall As Lions, Copeland) to sign them and enable them to release their first EP in early 2008, 'The penance and the patience', before the band was taken under much more reputable Equal Vision bosses' wing in the United States after many difficulties. And it's not a surprise if Closure In Moscow find themselves on the same label as Circa Survive and The Fall Of Troy today. Their progressive and technical rock and their singer Chris De Cinque's high-pitched voice have it all to please genre's fans.

They release their first album this month, produced as the EP by Kris Crummett (Drop Dead, Gorgeous, Fear Before, Dance Gavin Dance). 'The penance and the patience' showed such a large creative potential that this debut became long-awaited for what we could call the «Absolute Punk community».
The most enthusiastic ones must not be disappointed. 'First temple' features the same prog-rock and alt-rock elements, combining with verve technical parts and catchy hooks. Whereas some songs are genuine hymns to electric guitar ('Afterbirth'), others put De Cinque's subtle and high vocals in the spotlight, reminding inevitably those of The Mars Volta's Cedric Bixler-Zavala ('Reindeer age'), a few have an obvious jazzy rhythm ('A night at the spleen'), while the last ones sound more like Saosin's mid-tempo alternative rock ('Deluge'). Starts are powerful, guitars squeal in real sound explosions, the pace set by the technicality of Mansur Zennelli and Michael Barrett's riffs. The best example is the one used as 'Sweet#hart' intro which will without any doubt appear in the year's best riffs ranking. Closure In Moscow however don't lock themselves in a system of technique taken to extremes, the downpour of guitars being accompanied by meticulous samples with different contents, sometimes electronic ('Kissing cousins'), sometimes ambient ('Permafrost') and the band even uses acoustic on the interlude 'Couldn't let you love me', while at the same time some riffs from 'Sweet#hart' and 'Arecibo message' remind oriental tones.
The most appealing tracks yet are the most energetic ones, placed in the first half of the album. The second one is darker and more mid-tempo just like 'I'm a ghost in twilight', one of the only tracks not making us feel like pushing «repeat». Pitfalls are, therefore, clearly avoided and we get out of this 'First temple' with the pleasant sensation that we didn't have to be subjected to the listening of songs already heard a hundred times like it too often happens with actual new bands.

It's this ability to break the casual mold of songs composition and this skilful blend of technique, melody and originality that could make Closure In Moscow one of the scene's main bands in the near future. For the moment, the Australians at least just made one of 2009's best full-length debuts to date.

3.5/5

Recommanded if you like:
Saosin, The Mars Volta, Coheed And Cambria
Check also:
Damiera, Secret And Whisper, In:Aviate

www.myspace.com/closureinmoscow
(Equal Vision Records, 2009)

Gallows - Grey Britain

When a band tells about its plans to release a concept album, it often makes a lot of teeth gnash, especially when they still have everything to prove. This is yet into this perilous adventure that the English of Gallows launched for their second album.

Gallows are the English punk revival. And that's final. After a well-executed but not exceptional first album released on In At The Deep End (UK) and Epitaph (US) in 2006, the five British have seen themselves being made eyes by majors and it's Warner Bros. that won the auctions with a £1 million deal. As a result here is 'Grey Britain', a second effort in the form of concept album / open letter to their country.
We are from the beginning presented with a fait accompli: "Grey Britain is burning down / We'll be buried alive, before we drown / The queen is dead, so is this ground [...] Set alight to the flag we used to fly / It can't help us now, we are ready... to die". This introduction, certainly not much otimistic, opens the record to perfection. Great Britain is dying and they won't mind to spit on its grave.
The English quintet shows on this second album an ambition and risk-taking not much comparable to their debut. 'Grey Britain' transcends 'Orchestra of wolves', exceeding it in every way. The evolution is outstanding. The band has simply improved itself on every level: vocals, lyrics, instruments. Compositions are much more consistant, the whole is more solid, leading them to experiment orchestrations inclusions, something we would have found difficult to imagine in the days of their first opus, proof of the assurance and confidence acquired by the band. They went far, without necessarily losing themselves.

The five pals from Hertfordshire are, just like the beasts on the cover of their first album, real rabid dogs, their charismatic frontman Frank Carter spitting his sinister lines in your face with a rare fury. ‘Grey Britain’ is a true slap. A cat among the pigeons of the musical world and a cobblestone in the highest window of the Buckingham Palace.
The watchword is simple: "Britain is fucked". No need for translation. The album tackles with virulence Great Britain's eternal but actual different problems, on the social, political and economic level. Messages are clear, unequivocal and with no compromise: their country is in broad decadence, worse, in total decay and they are slightly pissed off about it. Irritated, brutal, the band goes from one murderous accusation to another against those who lead their nation to adrift, the religious sphere and its excesses not being saved ('Leeches'). The record stinks of sweat and blood. Violence and honor. Rats and misery. Street gangs and churches in flames. «Everything is falling apart».
The band show a mad savagery while keeping this inimitable English class. The "so British" accent is delicious, yet drown into the vociferations of an impressive Frank Carter. The young mad dog he was three years ago became one hell of a mouth, a loudmouth. His voice enormously evolved, even rougher and more hoarse than before. He hollers constantly, even on the short spoken parts (except for the first part of 'Vultures (Act I & II)'), he spits his words like he is carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders, with incredible conviction and determination. The young tattooist sings with his innards, on the verge of the rale, which fits perfectly with his writing which also matured much. Visceral, dark, dangerous, it paints a picture of modern Great Britain made of grey and nothing else, giving it an almost medieval image. The band filmed a 30-minute fiction to illustrate the album and we can only approve of the idea as Carter's writing is so explicit, almost cinematic. It gives a fire-and-brimestone feeling to the whole record, increased by the different samples of diverse sounds (crows, bells, waves, train, alarm) as well as the intro and the conclusion in the form of movie original soundtrack.

Dramatic, sinister, filthy but incredibly successful. The general gloom, that we also find instrumentally in the bass lines, heavy and dark, of Stuart Gili-Ross ('I dread the night'), choke the record though. 'Vultures (Act I & II)' sees the band taking a new path on its first half, on which Frank Carter's hoarse voice giving way to a surprisingly soft and in tune singing perfectly suited to the acoustic guitar accompanying it. Rage, however, isn't far, the second half of the track gives pride of place to the four others' powerful instrumentations. Guitars howl and drums are precise, cymbals fly, smacked by Lee Barratt's ardour. We must not as well trust the almost cheerful voice/drums intro's melody of 'Black eyes', this song being one of the heaviest of the record. Stephen Carter and Laurent Barnard's riffs are insane, we would swear hearing Have Heart on 'The riverbed'. And as listening to the lyrics, similarities don't end here: "We are the brothers, in my brothers I trust". The quintet is indeed more hardcore than ever, perfectly mastering intense gang vocals ('London is the reason') and tearing breakdowns (the huge 'Misery'). And if this 'Grey Britain', far from being an 'Orchestra of wolves' 2, strive for a frontiers-exceeding hardcore, some songs show the more basement punk side of their early days, as 'Leeches' and 'The great forgiver'. This album is just the perfect fusion between punk and hardcore, at the same time terribly heavy and terrifically energetic.
And how can we not talk about the last track, 'Crucifucks', genuine apocalypse hymn closing this scathing attack record in an total terror. By the use of many animal metaphors, Carter goes over the executioners of the prestigious London finishing off the martyred populations ("The snakes get fat while the good rats die [...] It's time for us to take a stand / We are dying on our knees in this grey broken land") before finally admitting, panting, everyone's responsability in the disaster over a military drums background: "There ain't no glory and there ain't no hope / We will hang ourselves, just show us the rope / There ain't no scapegoats left to blame / We brought this on ourselves and we could have been the change / Great Britain is fucking dead / So cut our throats, end our lives, lets fucking start again". Then follow several entirely instrumental minutes, letting us admire the ship sinking, still all rattled by what we just heard. If the xylophone may seem inappropriate, the piano and the violins are breath-taking and wonderfully crystallize the final desolation. An epic conclusion worthy of this name.

Gallows was only a simple punk-hardcore band among so many others beforehand, but with 'Grey Britain’ they rise to the rank of movement's new first in line, accomplishing what some have been trying to do for ten years. The jump to major was not a mistake, quite the contrary. According to Frank Carter, it's rather his band itself that is "the musical industry's biggest mistake". Him who was claiming not a long ago that Gallows was not his life, him, the tatto artist. "Gallows won't last five years", he said. Well, we will see soon enough, but in the meantime, he will definitely devote his next months to it, as tours will doubtlessly go on all around the globe.
England can be proud of its five nasty brats, from now on more "nasty" than "brats". The wonderful spite and application Gallows show only gives their country its letters patent of nobility. On a purely punk plan, of course.

5/5

Recommanded if you like:
Black Flag, Cancer Bats, The Bronx
Check also:
The Ghost Of A Thousand, Blackhole, Dead Swans

www.myspace.com/gallows
(Reprise Records, 2009)