School for Heroes "Listen" CD
[Tribunal]
This band's style is equal parts radio friendly post-hardcore and abrasive post-hardcore - mixing lush layers of clean guitars, droning distorted melodies, driving basslines, and singing with chunky, discordant rhythms and distorted screaming. I guess technically it's not quite equal parts... as the vocals are definitely more singing than anything, but I must say, even though the vocals are the most "mainstream" sounding aspect of this (I'd be lying if I said the singing didn't sort of remind me of Staind or whatever), the guy can sing pretty god damn good. "Burning the Bed" actually reminds me of Snapcase's more recent work musically, and the somewhat calmer "Sleeping on Rocks" is definitely an incredibly memorable piece. Now, there are some crappy songs here... things sort of get old towards the middle of the disc with "Ornament" and portions of "Telephone", and as with most of these types of bands the disc is what I would consider to be too long for its own good... but I still like it for the most part. I think my main suggestion would be for the band to experiment with more tempo changes. All of the songs tend to run right around four minutes at right about the same midpaced tempo, so even though some of the tracks are great, after 30 minutes (if that) it all starts to sound the same, which can hold back the listening experience. They've got great production, though. The guitars aren't always as bright as this style of music tends to be, and the bass isn't very prominent (but it adds a lot of low-end density), however the percussion is really natural, and the vocals sound really fucking slick. Nice. Visually this thing's not bad. I actually like the photography a lot, it's just set up a bit differently than most layouts, and that's pretty cool. One entire side of the booklet is an interesting little panoramic band photo, and the other has the lyrics spread out across it. The lyrics are personal and speak little, using mainly open, typical phrases to get the point across in a nondescript fashion. Ironically this is yet another band coming from Tribunal that I could quite easily imagine getting played all over the radio and ending up on a much larger label. Not bad. I'm not totally into it, but this is a really professional effort, and it all boils down to catchy songwriting and stuff. (6/10)
Running time - 45:00 (approximately), Tracks: 11
[Notable tracks: Sleeping on Rocks, The Broken Line, Japanese Honor]
Tribunal Records - http://www.tribunalrecords.com

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