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Scream Out Loud

Live It Up EP

Written by: PP on 04/07/2012 23:12:42

It's obviously Roskilde Festival and holiday time right now in case you're wondering why review activity has dwindled to near-zero in the past week or so. But not everyone is at the festival so I feel obliged to provide some required reading in the meantime. I'll start with Scream Out Loud, a Florida-based emo/post-hardcore unit who are for all intents and purposes a clone of Silverstein. Everything from the slightly whiny emo croons and the supporting, hardcore/screamo rooted harsh contrasting barks to the punk inspired tempo and pure mid last-decade emo melodies is identical to the material produced by the Canadian legends (yes, I just said it, within post-hardcore they deserve that status) since their early EPs.

Is that a bad thing? Not necessarily, and "Live It Up" showcases a band that's almost ready to follow in the same footsteps as Silverstein, except that their retrospective sound does feel a little too dated and cliché overall in 2012. There's a heavy focus on a clean/scream dynamic and on the catchy chorus, as well as on Hawthorne Heightsian cut-my-wrists lyricism such; gems include lines like "this is the last time that you will rip my heart out" and "so take what you want and leave the rest behind, I'll pick up all the pieces on my own", which should tell you a great deal of what to expect from this record.

At the same time, Scream Out Loud are capable of delivering some fairly catchy melodies thanks to their clean singer who could be the long-lost brother to Silverstein's Shane Told. The screams, however, are mediocre at worst, generic at best, so they drag down the score a little bit. But most of all, since creativity and originality is thrown out the window in favor of a slavish note-by-note, melody-by-melody reconstruction of the mid 2000s emo/post-hardcore bands, it's hard to know why we should listen to this instead of "Discovering The Waterfront", despite the decent melodies offered by the record overall.

Download: The Fear Of Letting Go
For the fans of: Silverstein, Hawthorne Heights, Alesana
Listen: Facebook

Release date 05.02.2012
Indianola Records