New Found Glory & Dashboard Confessional

Swiss Army Bro-Mance EP

Written by: PP on 17/02/2010 13:28:50

New Found Glory and Dashboard Confessional were meant to tour across the States together last fall, but it was eventually canceled on short notice because of some personal problems from Dashboard's side. Prior to the tour, both bands had been in the studio recording a limited edition split EP called "Swiss Army Bro-Mance" to be sold exclusively during this tour, where both bands cover two songs from the other band in a style of their choosing, and they've decided to put the EP up for sale now that the tour never took place.

New Found Glory have opted for their traditional up-tempo, nasal pop punk when covering "The Swiss Army Romance" and "Saints And Sailors". Now if you're a Dashboard fan or have any knowledge to these songs prior to hearing the covers, you're sure to be shocked, because Dashboard songs have never sounded as fast and as pop punk as here. But unless you're crying "SACRILEGE!!" out loud, you have to give New Found Glory some credit for effectively transforming the songs into New Found Glory songs. As we all know, they are one of the best bands at what they do, so the end result is very good. Besides, the band has shown their prowess with covering slower and poppier songs in the past with the two "From The Screen To Your Stereo" recordings, so these two covers easily better Dashboard's equivalents on the second side of the EP.

Dashboard Confessional, on the other hand, sound way more electronica than normally. Acoustic guitars have been scrapped in favour of sampled electronic beats and high-pitch effects on the guitars. So don't expect any acoustic guitar-driven emo pop on their side, they've gone all experimental instead. Carraba's vocals on "Better Off Dead" are more delicate and silkier than Jordan's, consequently sounding curiously original emo on the experimentalist rendition of the track, which, at least according to my standards, falls quite far behind the original. Same goes for "All About Her", which is somewhat more upbeat, but when the guitars borrow their tone from the latest two Coldplay albums, I can't say I'm too impressed. It's somewhat better than "Better Off Dead", but I think both tracks highlight one interesting notion I've seen previously with other softer bands covering punk bands: transforming poppier songs into punker songs is easy and usually gives a good result (Four Year Strong's "Explains It All" anyone?), but the opposite almost never holds true.

7

Download: The Swiss Army Romance, All About Her
For the fans of: New Found Glory, Dashboard Confessional, Punk goes pop series
Listen: NFG Myspace / Dashboard Myspace

Release date 01.02.2010
Epitaph

New Found Glory:

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