SAFE2SAY - 3 Sides To Every Story CD-EP
Oddly enough a quartet that I've seen live on a few occasions who've kind of impressed me yet left me feeling like I'm not yet seeing the real potential of the band. But this EP dispels all those misgivings and proves that, given a good performance over a cracking PA system, that this band has, indeed, got what it takes.
The EP opens with “The Fall” a red hot and roaring slice of intense indie-punk, something that works so well because it manages to combine a massive sea of buzz-saw, scything riffing with guitars just going all over the place while the solid rhythmic foundations manage to propel it all along and at the same time be the glue that keeps it all together. Yet, for all the twisting and turning roar of the engines, there's a real direction, a real sense of compositional determination and a brain as well as a heart behind this surging monster of a song. The vocal are delivered with rage and angst, sung rather than shouted but sounding shouted, as the vocals splinter like rifle-fire on the occasions where the lead vocal diverts from its driving rage-fuelled purpose in life. The whole thing bursts, sizzles, erupts and lurches, but manages to keep you hooked without anything resembling a hook, musically or vocally. In a weird kind of compositional universe, it's stunning!
They follow this up with “Little Miss Chevious” that starts where the previous one left off, then suddenly slows to just vocal and , drums and chiming guitar before roaring into gear and driving forward once more, this time vocals sparring with each other as the song twists from the heat and turns from the relief, once again splintering and raging, but so cohesive that you just remain completely captured by this hollering multi-layered track that's got more corners than a country road, more twists than a poker tournament and another solid performance on a well written and arranged slice of roaring indie-punk that you can't help but admire and enjoy. “Ashes For Lashes” opens with muffled sounds before the drums kick in, the duelling vocals take off, the guitars ring out and then the whole thing goes hell-for-leather into a slice of emo-punk that really hammers down and delivers the goods on a song that has so many layers and textures to it, you're gonna need several hearings just to take in all that it has to offer, as it rocks and rages to perfection, lurches and drives, twists and turns and has this incendiary sea of riffing and spiraling guitars that puts the icing on what is a solid and totally amazing cake. For this style of “thinking man's indie-punk” with as much atttitude as thought as performance, this is at the top of the tree – now let's see if we can get a live performance that reflects this!!
