The Goodwill "Insult, Injury, Etc...." CD
[Abacus]
Here's another heavy emo band out of Long Island that has a lot of potential, though I don't feel that they've truly nailed it on this outing. What they have working in their favor are a lot of strong riffs that blend metallic heaviness with emo melody and catchiness, at times coming off as more rocked out, and generally tending to sound a little different than most of their contemporaries. There's a lot of interaction between dual guitar lines and prominent bass parts that I like a lot, and a lot of the more straightforward chord progressions have a good energy happening. The songwriting tends to be decent as well, keeping things fairly concise and focused, etc. What holds them back are that the vocals aren't really on point, and the recording needs a little polishing up as well. Were the songs really catchy I could easily live with this recording, but things come off as a little bit flat. The mix is great and I love how prominent and defined the basslines are, but the drums lack resonance and everything feels like it needs more cohesive force. Most importantly though, the vocals sound surprisingly dry and kind of separated from the music, which brings more attention to the singing. And that brings us to my gripes about the vocals. They're not bad, ranging from singing to gravelly shouting/screaming, and the dude has a unique sounding voice. But it's just not that forceful, you know? It feels a little plain and lacking in energy, and were that not the case I think a lot of these songs would pop out far more. Though, a brighter and fuller recording would make catchier numbers like "Live From the Red Carpet" work perfectly as is. Along with a few other tracks like "The Magic 8 Ball Society", that one reaches a great balance between the 90's style of emo and the more popular modern niche of the genre, using slightly heavy chord progressions, melodic lead lines, light smatterings of pop-punk or post-hardcore, peppy song structures, etc. "The Perfect Honeymoon" is a ballad kind of thing - you know, slower, clean guitars, keyboards, etc. - which offers a change of pace that's almost really nice, but sort of comes off as slightly forced, so... I'm torn on that one. The layout's pretty minimal, using shattered glass on the cover and abstract blue textures everywhere else, with tiny, clean text. It's a little plain in some ways, but the cover does look pretty nice, so screw it. The lyrics are a blend of personal turmoil issues and all that, varying from the trite and typical to a few passages that have more of a rock 'n' roll style and some lines that aren't so bad, but overall I'm not that impressed by content like, "Broken wings spiral to the ground mouth tied shut I'm still laughing guilt blows your heart out through your back no one finds you I'm still laughing..." I don't know, I'm admittedly really into this style when it's developed enough, and this band is damn close, but just a touch shy of success. I'll expect their next record to throw 'em in the clear as they progress naturally, though. (6/10)
Running time - 35:36, Tracks: 11
[Notable tracks: Plastic Ones, Live From the Red Carpet, The Magic 8 Ball Society]
Abacus Recordings - http://www.abacusrecordings.com

This review has been displayed 1664 times.