Blindside

The Great Depression

Written by: PP on 17/08/2005 00:36:48

With "The Great Depression", Sweden's Blindside sees a shift from the slightly harder, more screamo influenced sound of their 2004 album "About A Burning Fire" into a softer, more experimental, almost garage rockish sound complemented by some silent but effective soft pieces. But fear not, my dear screamo lovers. Blindside haven't removed Christian's screaming entirely, it's just less in quantity. But sometimes quality is more important than quantity; "Yemkela" will not leave Christian's vocal talent unnoticed. Much like Bert McCracken of The Used, Christian is able to switch from full-scale top of the lungs screaming into clean vocals almost instantly.

The band has chosen an interesting approach to start the album off. Instead of kicking it off with pure madness featuring heavy guitars, speed and screaming, it starts with a lo-fi radio message speaking about revolution and depression. Quite an unusual start, I must say, and it leaves the sound of the album ambiguous. The theme thrown across in the message is an amitious one, which scares the listener into thinking that this is yet another political punk album. However, after "Heartattack" blasts through your stereos, it is clear that Blindside have decided to evolve from their old sound. Sure, there's still screaming and melody, but the band has definitely grown up. "The Great Depression"'s formula is based on more innovative riffs, more guitar driven bridges, and more singing instead of screaming.

The first four tracks after the intro will be the definite favorites of the Blindside fans. Mixtures of melody, screaming, singing are top notch, and there are very few bad things to say about these tracks.

Then comes "Yemkela", the track with the most screaming on the album. Nothing wrong there either. "Put Back The Stars" may well be the best track on this album with its desperation hidden behind the slow, quiet almost whiny vocals, which is finally brought forward by the bridge once the vocals shift from singing into near-screamo-like ones. "Citylights" is another highlight of the record with its Thursday-esque sound, featuring straight forward guitars over silent vocals much in the same way as the emocore kings.

So all this being said, it sounds like a great album, right? So why aren't I listening to it over and over? Why do I need to nearly force myself into listening to it in order to give a fair review? I suppose it's just lacking that one song so good, that would get me hooked straight away. Sure, "We're All Going To Die", "Heartattack", "Citylights" and "Put Back The Stars" are great songs but...After listening the album several times the album still lacks identity. Why don't I remember any of the songs i've listened to more than 5 times each? While almost all of the songs on this record are solid, good alternative songs there's still that one bit missing which would give the album an 8er or higher.

7

Download: Put Back The Stars, Citylights
For the fans of: Muse, Thursday

Release date 02.08.2005
Rte / Drt records

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