Seconds Before "Further Destinations" CD
[Lost Arts]
This Minneapolis band features in its ranks guitarist Carl Skildum from the almighty Threadbare and Krakatoa, among others, but don't expect any form of metallic hardcore mastery here. Instead this is fairly subdued emo/indie rock material. It has a catchy sort of angle to it, and the writing is more subtly involved than most of this stuff, but it's also really laidback and calm in a nice way. At times it sort of reminds me of the Doughboys' later work, but it's more textured and dynamic, without that "poppy" sort of framework, granted the choruses are definitely pretty damn forceful and memorable. Maybe combine the Doughboys sans the pop with Chamberlain's "Fate's Got a Driver", but cleaner and more focused. I like the vocals because the harmonies are fucking awesome and the singing style isn't too plain, but it's also not exaggerated in any way, it's just regular old singing, and that's what it should be. The guitar parts can get pretty intricate as well, with a lot of layering and tonal differences. A couple of tracks introduce keyboards, which I tend to not be into, and here they're used to varying degrees of success. "Therapy" opens with the brief use of programmed beats along with some acoustic guitars, but I don't think the electronic aspects of songs like "Good Cop Bad Cop" really feel necessary in an otherwise killer track. For the most part there's a lot of blending of clean and distorted guitars, never getting too heavy, but definitely packing a punch at times. I have no quarrels with the recording. Everything is clear and well placed in the mix, all of the careful layering of guitar lines seems to show itself, the bass plays a great role, etc. It could probably use some work, but just barely. They'd basically just be improving upon something that's already pretty damn good, so... Visually everything looks nice, too. Everything is clean and the imagery is consist - all consisting of motion blurred photos taken in a train station. The lyrics aren't bad either, taking the personal route but keeping it above average on the creativity scale, without being overly blunt or what have you. "I'm crawling this highway. This overfilled ashtray is begging me to turn around. These eyelids are falling. My destiny is stalling and god only knows where I'm bound..." This is a great disc. I'd prefer the absence of keyboards, but other than that the songwriting is pretty tight, and I'd really expect this band to get somewhat popular, because in all reality they have the ability to be huge, depending on where it takes 'em. (7/10)
Running time - 33:49, Tracks: 9
[Notable tracks: Therapy, Stop Not Starting, Eyes & I]
Seconds Before - http://www.secondsbefore.com

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