The Kent Emo/grunge rookies celebrate not only the release of this 6-track EP but also a new (and seemingly settled) line up after several recent changes of personnel.
There’s absolutely nothing new about their brand of 4/4 feedback frenzy, delivered with the usual deadpan sincerity that only teenage dirtbags seem able to muster up (Aahhhh, what it was to take y’self so-o-o-o bloody seriously).
Yep, the SG E.P. consists of all the usual ingredients – ultra-seriousness, deep-set melodies, staccato guitar-fire and overall relentlessness, together with the usual-suspect subjects that detail hung-up/hanging out tales of love and misunderstanding.
You can set your watch to it right enough, but to the band’s credit, this EP boasts evidence of a good, tight, loud rock band amongst its virtues (this type of gain-heavy grunge is always 10 times better when it’s live and inflicting severe damage on the ol’eardrums!). This is underlined by the faintly operatic drop-out mini-epic ‘We’ll Sleep When You’re Dead’, and the witch-hunting search for someone responsible entitled ‘Breathing’s Overrated’ (now I’d have thought exactly the opposite), which is the solitary serious attempt to tear our heads off out of 6.
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However, you have to be seriously good to excel when breaking new ground comes so low on your list of priorities – ultimately, it’s THE STARTOVER’s complete lack of imagination that formed the basis of my first impression. And on closer inspection, the pedestrian nature of the record indeed hampers their brave and sincere attempts at sonic destruction and mayhem
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