Scraps of Tape
Grand letdown
A Tenderversion Recording
This band continues to evolve with every album and this, their third overall, finds them trying to incorporate more standard pop conventions into their particular brand of heavy postrock. There's still plenty of focus on long, interwoven guitar parts and complex arrangements, but there's also a lot more vocals than ever before and a renewed attempt at redefining and refining their sound. Bits of Fireside-esque post-hardcore gets intermingled with other, more contemporary post-indie/rock/whatever and the end result turns out to be a bit more schizophrenic and far less consistent than previous album "This is a copy is this a copy". However, at the same time, it's far more interesting to hear a band grow with each new release and that's certainly what SoT are doing and the tracks that do work well are easily their best material yet. For each misstep, such as two unnecessary and out of place cover tunes (A novelty slowcore version of Minor Threat's "Filler" plus "Eric" by the terminally underappreciated Carpet People), there is a stride forward. An inspired idea on paper, sure, and undoubtedly fun for the band to play, though not so hot in execution. I foresee "Grand letdown" as a transitional work, a bridge for things to come. It's worth noting too, that many of their peers are going through similar musical soul-searching (Aerial, Immanu El, etc.), all struggling to break free of expected genre trappings and all ending up in a slightly different place. So far, so good... let's see what happens next.
- Avi Roig
