The Prisoners Dilemma "Handshakes, Hello and Goodbye" CD
[Indianola]
Hmmm... I guess this could be promising, but it's too disjointed so I'm not really into it. Metallic sort of emo with lots of melody, lots of riffs, hints of chaotic dissonance, some not-quite-chugging breakdowns, a few Slayer-ish riffs, a few Iron Maiden-ish riffs, singing, screaming... I don't know. It's not totally generic, but it's not groundbreaking or anything. I think my biggest problems are that I find the vocals to be irritating and the songs are generally way too long. The singing is sort of whiny, some of the harmonies are nice, but it's still whiny. And the shrieking screams are just annoying, flat out, no question. Some of the music is pretty damn cool, especially a few of the lush clean moments or more straightforward melodic chord progressions, but the more metallic riffs aren't played with enough precision to really work (just check out how sloppy the dual guitar runs in "Revolver" are), and none of the songs really warrant 5+ minute running times with a million changes. These guys would be far better off sticking to a standard and fairly streamlined style of song structures without all that excess baggage. "For Safety Reasons" sort of heads in that kind of direction, but it's a worthless radio emo/screamo ballad kind of song in large part, and it's not really a good one at that (those irritating vocals strike again). The production is good for what they're doing in most respects. The bassist is pretty damn good, plus he's got a good tone and a solid location in the mix, the drums have a good snap to 'em, the guitars tend to sound good, etc. The vocals are separated from the instruments more than I'd prefer, and certain elements of the mix could use tightening up, but that's more a performance issue than anything else. I really like the layout here because it's really engaging and they let a lot of standalone artwork run the show without the interference of text. The front cover has no type on it, and the inner four panels all combine together into one large spread of art with pretty much no text involved ether. Everything is nice and consistent, and the lyrics are really compactly formatted as well. The lyrics seem to blend the personal and the somewhat political, and even though the topics are a little typical, they do seem to have their own spin on approaching everything. I'm not really interested in the lyrics, but they could certainly be worse. This just isn't my thing. If nothing else they need to practice more so that there are no falters in the playing, but I definitely think trimming the fat and streamlining the writing could be very beneficial. (5/10)
Running time - 30:19, Tracks: 8
[Notable tracks: none of them really stand out as a whole]
Indianola Records - http://www.indianolarecords.com

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