Overlife Inc. "Guia Prático de Como se Expressar de Forma Simples..." CD
[Pecúlio]
Wow, I didn't know what to expect here, but this São Paulo act kicks out some great melodic hardcore/punk that sort of sounds like Dag Nasty with more of an old school hardcore sound. Maybe if you combined Dag Nasty with something like the first H2O record and some of the early Fat Wreck stuff. I love the fast vocal patterns (the Portuguese language works perfectly for such arrangements) and the songs are fairly energetic and somewhat catchy. The crazy thing is that this is their debut album, even though they've been around for eight years! There's not a great deal of variety on the CD, but the songs are quick and to the point, and at less than 30 minutes the disc keeps moving nicely. I'd love to hear more vocal harmonies, because they're actually very good, but it's still cool as is. At least there's a good mix of aggressively melodic hardcore and borderline pop punk. This is the first time I've heard something of this nature out of Brazil, but I dig it. At the end of the CD after about a minute or so of silence they even do a cover of "Digging the Grave" by Faith No More, which really surprised me. The production could use a little bit of work, but it's not that bad at all. The drums sound pretty good, but everything else lacks the crispness of the drums. The vocals are slightly muffled, the bass doesn't stand out quite enough, and the guitars need to somehow be brighter without thinning out at all. But it's easy to adjust to and sounds fairly strong, so it doesn't particularly bother me. The layout is pretty simple, using mostly black space with a few band photos and an image of one lone light bulb amongst the shards of several other bulbs on the front cover. All of the lyrics are in Portuguese except for two songs in somewhat broken English, which are fairly personal: "I hope I never lose the fight, When you look our purpose go down by your side, And never show to you the mistakes that I did it for, I hope I find your happiness, When I find one way to survive, And make you believe in my solution when I tell you more." This won't be for everyone, but if you're into melodic hardcore with a pop punk edge and aren't afraid to admit that you like all of Dag Nasty's records, I'd suggest giving this one a shot. (7/10)
Running time - 25:00 (approximately), Tracks: 13
[Notable tracks: Simples, Vencer, I Hope, O Anti Cristo, Digging the Grave]
Pecúlio Discos - http://www.peculiodiscos.com.br

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