The Holy Mess

Cande Ru Las Degas

Written by: PP on 08/10/2012 23:22:56

It has been only a year since The Holy Mess released their self-titled debut album (a compilation of previous recordings), and they are already finished with the next one in line, which they've titled "Cande Ru Las Degas". It continues largely where its predecessor left off, but also starts to define exactly how The Holy Mess signature sound is to be like. If previously their Lawrence Arms worship was a little too obvious, here it has been toned down a notch as the band fine-tune their sound gritty Midwestern punk sound for a clearer identity.

It comes at the cost of some of those infectious melodies that really made their record stand out last year. The shouted out choruses are still there, and the band still sounds like they're drenched in passion, but they've polished their sound somewhat and dare to take a few risks in terms of their songwriting. Essentially they've moved away from sounding exactly like Lawrence Arms into a place where they find themselves all of a sudden also surrounded by influences of Off With Their Heads, Red City Radio, and consequently the resulting sound is a little smoother than the latter and takes the anthemic nature of the songs from the former, while keeping things nice and gritty in just the way we like it from our Midwestern sounding bands.

But perhaps most importantly, "Cande Ru Las Degas" is a much more mature record than "The Holy Mess" ever was, that much you can hear from the songwriting. It's not all pedal-to-the-floor shout-out punk rock with great melodies, now they experiment with the tempo a little bit as well as the atmosphere: some of the bright singalongs have been brushed aside for a darker vibe overall. "Asleep In A Room Full Of Dog Shit" has an almost metallic vibe to it, for instance, thanks to the raw screams and the low-pitched guitar melodies. I can dig that, but it just feels a little less infectious than before.

7

Download: Hospitals, Cold Goodbyes,
For the fans of: Off With Their Heads, Red City Radio, The Lawrence Arms
Listen: Facebook

Release date 14.08.2012
Red Scare / Evil Weevil Records / Weird Skull Enterprises

Related Items | How we score?
Comments
comments powered by Disqus

Legal

© Copyright MMXXIV Rockfreaks.net.