Remain OpposedOut of the suburbs of Melbourne, Australia comes this four piece who play melodic hardcore punk that brings to mind bands like Good Riddance, Strung Out, and Rise Against. They have been around since 2005, and released a 5 song demo later that year.
For an EP this thing is pretty fucking long, which I'm not going to complain about. There are 8 tracks that consistently stay around the 2:30 area. One of the things this guys really have going for them is their ability to mix more traditional punk with melodic hardcore and then on top of it, to have the ability to cleverly mix in some really sweet metal leanings which helps keeps things interesting.
Ah, I don't know these lyrics were just eh to me. I just have no stomach for a song like "RazorbladeRomance", I mean even the title of the song is just bad. For me probably the best line of lyrics was the line from intro/opening track, "Memento Mori"–"We will live and we will die, what's in between we will decide." Songs like "A New Breed of Defiance" and "Revolution 101" have good intentions behind them but almost come off as hackneyed. It sounds like I'm totally bashing them but I'm not, it's not horrible writing just been done too much to stick out anymore than it does.
See this is how a hardcore punk record should sound, not too polished but not shitty either. The bass tone sounds absolutely fantastic with a nice warm tone that has the slightest touch of treble. The drums sound damn good, the toms are really pronounced and the snare tone is quality. The lone guitar has enough distortion/overdrive to please me.
Not exactly the greatest layout but it works for me and does tie into the title of the record. I'm always a sucker for the black/green layout so the color scheme of black, green and blue shades mixed in do the job nicely. The booklet is a simple enough, a two panel booklet with the lyrics sprawled across both pages with a papyrus background and the obligatory shots of the band placed in between.
Rating: 3/5
Songs Worthy of Replay: Alive And Bleeding and Dead Don't Bleed
Synopsis: It's hard to stick out in a genre that is growing more and more inundated with bands trying to be the next Comeback Kid or Rise Against but these guys are still good. They have a little more omph to their sound, the slight metallic leanings really work in their favor and for some reason the singer just stood out to me. The one thing I wasn't really huge into about this were the lyrics, just didn't do it for me.
Check out what these guys have to offer over at their MySpace page: Click Here