The Flatliners

Dead Language

Written by: PP on 29/09/2013 22:21:48

With "Dead Language", The Flatliners officially establish themselves as one of the most consistent new bands in the modern punk rock scene. It is their fourth album thus far where little deviation can be heard in terms of the musical red thread or the quality of songs within. They play melodic punk rock with gnarled vocals that sound like they're delivered from the middle of a bar-room brawl, spiced up with catchy riffs, memorable choruses and all the other stuff you'd expect from a Fat Wreck Chords release these days. Think The Lawrence Arms, Dead To Me, Astpai, Accelerators, Banner Pilot, The Holy Mess, None More Black, and that sort of stuff. You catch the drift.

Let's put it this way. If you were a fan of "Cavalcade", you'll find this release to have the same goodies as well as flaws as that record. It has a few ridiculously catchy songs that stretch towards the anthemic, namely opener "Resuscitation Of The Year", "Caskets Full", "Drown In Blood", and "Sew My Mouth Shut", which has probably the best Flatliners chorus since "Eulogy". At the same time, it also has songs that feel more anonymous in nature, that are either not particularly catchy or just feel like The Flatliners are on autopilot playing melodic punk rock. That has always been a catch with The Flatliners: you get a bunch of awesome songs that remind you why roughened vocals over melodic riffs at a high-octane tempo is a great idea, but at the cost of an album that swings in quality somewhat between the fantastic and the standard fare stuff. Now, if you're wondering how this ties up with the consistency factor named above, it is actually quite simple: all Flatliners albums have enough strong songs on them that impress enough for you to forget about the songs that don't stick to mind as well. At the same time the 'other' songs are still reasonably good, just not as catchy or noteworthy as the ones mentioned in this review. So with that logic, you can infer that The Flatliners release consistently good albums overall, which have a few great songs, and a few anonymous songs on each side of the balance.

Basically, gruff vocals, thick bass lines, melodic song structures, energetic tempo, standard Fat Wreck chords formula. That's all you need to know about The Flatliners if you don't know them beforehand. If you do, then just know that "Dead Language" ranks evenly with the rest of their discography with no noticeable changes in style or structure.

Download: Resuscitation Of The Year, Sew My Mouth Shut, Drown in Blood, Caskets Full, Dead Hands
For the fans of: The Lawrence Arms, Dead To Me, Astpai, Accelerators
Listen: Facebook

Release date 17.09.2013
Fat Wreck Chords

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