Sicbay/Valina "The Euro Tour Split 7" 7"
[SuperFi]
Sicbay takes side A with some quirky indie rock type of stuff with a driving rhythm section and vocals that fall between singing, speaking, and yelling. "Gamma Free" opens with a tight performance and a lot of movement with some memorable riffs that are atypical for this style, while "Spazz" is a cover by The Elastik Band and is more of a garage rock sounding thing, which is sort of derivative and not as interesting as their original work at all. They do have a good recording though, slightly rough but evenly mixed with a great bass presence. Valina (Austria) follows with an unusual piece ("Escort of Soda") that opens with reverberated singing and then heads into more indie stuff, made weaker by the presence of disruptive saxophone and trumpet that are far too chaotic and noisy. The music in the piece is okay after that, but the vocals are sort of plain, and there's no distortion or anything, so as a whole it's kind of laidback and doesn't really do much for me. At least their recording is very nice and smooth, which is cool for such a quick track on a split EP. The package gives each band one square cover for their own art and text information, with a wraparound strip (hand-numbered of 500 copies) holding things in place (and the record is on clear yellow vinyl). Neither artist includes lyrics, just credits and such, so there's only so much to go on there. I'm sort of 50/50 on a lot of this material, but I go enjoy Sicbay's "Gama Free", so I'll give 'em the benefit of the doubt. I'd need to hear more to get a real idea of what Valina offers, and I wouldn't rule them out, but still... (6/10)
Running time - 10:00 (approximately), Tracks: 3
[Notable tracks: Gamma Free]
SuperFi Records - http://go.to/superfi/

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