The Paper Street Soap Co. "Cognitive Dissonance" CD
[self-released]
After a few minutes of absolutely terrible clean indie sounding chords and whatnot this trio crashes into some caustic material that gets pretty heavy, complete with scathing screams, but I'm not sure how I feel about it as a whole. First things first, the recording is too raw. It definitely sounds demo level. And I can understand that and all - this is an entirely self-produced affair, but it sounds too dry and raw, so it comes off as plain and doesn't allow the stronger moments of the music enough oomph to leave a mark. Beyond that the songwriting is too disjointed and random for me, as they jump from caustic discordance and chunky staccato rhythms to completely amelodic indie styles and even dashes of jazzy metal, and the vocals also shift from screaming to monotone "singing" (if you can call it that). Some of the riffs are damn good, usually those more focused around chunky chord progressions or some of the more metallic picking patterns, but the majority of the disc is honestly pretty painful. The bassist seems to be damn good, but the guitar performance has a lot of falters in it, and I'm not really impressed by the drumming since the fluidity of the basslines steals the show when it comes to the rhythm section. Some of the jazzier percussion work is fucking great though, so those two have a little more promise in my book than the guitar work. "The Silent Revenge of the Good Guy", sans some tuning problems, opens with a very solid set of linear changes that are very Helmet-esque (circa "Meantime"), but as with the other songs it eventually wanders from its core and starts to... well, it starts to suck. I could see the band doing some really cool things if they'd lock in on something strong and stick with it, but that doesn't seem to be their goal. The CD-R is packaged rather minimally with black and white art that looks like it was printed from a home computer, but it's clean and legible so I can live with it being on the plain side. The lyrics are personal to varying degrees of bluntness, and even though I can identify with some of the more pissed off elements, there are some portions that aren't hitting me at all - namely those that deal more with whinier lines like, "Goner forever. So senseless. Why'd you leave me? You left me here all alone. Stranded without a friend..." I don't know... I commend them for doing their own thing and for having ideas in place, but I really don't care for this at all. If nothing else tighten up the playing significantly and work on securing a clearer and more rounded recording. Beyond that I'd honestly recommended trying to maintain diversity while narrowing the focus a bit (the weird funky chords opening "Kick the Door Down" are really pushing it) and getting rid of the singing (the singing is simply awful, I'll be honest). I'll level with you, despite some really powerful segments, there is some complete shit on this thing... I hate to be an asshole, but I also hate to hear good riffs go to waste. Sorry. (3/10)
Running time - 37:32, Tracks: 11
[Notable tracks: no single song wins me over, only bits and pieces]
The Paper Street Soap Co. - http://www.thepaperstreetsoapco.cjb.net

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