| FARENHEIT 451 - 7 inch These guys were one of my total soft spot favourites for a long time. It's like, I hate to call it emo, because that's gonna mean everyone's gonna think it sounds like jimmy eat world or something. This is another one of those records that just could only have come from australia. Especially only at a certain point in time, when you could have seen these guys, trigger, one inch punch and wrongbody on the same lineup at the arthouse and no one would have been making a big deal about having a 'diverse bill'. Well, shit...okay, it's emo. He may not agree with me himself, but I hear a lot of Ben from heartfeltself (when they were the old heartfeltself)'s playing sort of in this. In fact there's one guitar part that it sounds like he directly copped, unwittingly or not. Muscially, it's a nice mix, there's a little bit of groove metal, a little bit of melodic hardcore, and a little bit of post hardcore (like quicksand or something). The vocals are great, half screamed, half sung, half yelled, and half cried. Very passionate and intense. It's not like a fake arse hardcore scream trying to be passed off as emotion. It's very sincere. The way the music's intricacy and melody work with the harshness of the vocals is great as well. It's what snubfighter would love to do but never could. The thing that I totally love about this is that it's a four piece where everyone contribute. The bass is doing it's own thing and actually playing the 'song' per se. The guitar is over that, playing counterpoints. You can tell it's Bernie (he was in seeling too, you know...the guy always up the front at ID theft shows?) on the drums with the cowbell and everything else. He's Australia's answer to Keith Moon. And the vocals, like I said above, are intense. That's probably what is so striking about this record. It was done in 1997. Long before this shit was fashionable. I don't think these kids would have been wearing glasses and shirts. Instead, this is just SO sincere compared to a lot of the clean, over produced stuff you get nowadays. I wish more people would sort of hear this kind of thing as well as the new stuff. I like a lot of new bands, but credit where credit is due. 4 years ago there was this melbourne band doing this with so much more emotion and passion. If this record doesn't move you then you've got no heart. It's $4. I don't think there's all that many left. Go fucking buy this, and realise that not every great band has to be on an American label. There might in fact be a band playing at the arthouse on any given weekend that is a lot more worthy of your attention. 5 songs, 7 inch. |