One song each from these two melodic acts out of Virginia, as the title would suggest. Skyline Awake takes side A with "Seeking Solace", offering up melodic hardcore/emo with singing vocals and a few nice vocal harmonies. They've got a good mix of dynamics between midpaced melodic chords and chunky distortion with a couple of lighter breaks that ease up towards clean tones. It's not necessarily original, but it's not generic, and I think it's memorable without being poppy or cheesy like a lot of what's out there right now. Speeding up a touch would be nice, and the singing can be sort of flat, but I like it for the most part. There are some briefly "metallic" notes towards the end, and the streamlined writing approach works. Plus, they do have a great sound. The tones are smooth, the mix is strong, etc. I'm not really into the lyrics as it's all personal and sort of whiny to me, I don't know. No big deal. Races to April follows with a similar approach, but comes off as more of an emo band, though one more influenced by the "classics" as opposed to the modern definition of the term. It's not the poppy/screamy junk. They open with piano and really nice singing over smooth clean guitars, leading into some subtle post-hardcore flare to the rhythms. It's laidback, but a fairly nice tune. The sound is solid, it needs a little more bass fullness, but minimal tweaking would do the trick. The lyrics are very similar in style to Skyline Awake, it's just not my thing... it all seems forced and sappy on some level, I don't know. The record comes on clear red vinyl and the packaging is really clean and basic with minimal text/artwork and tons of photos of the bands posing together. I hate the whole "bro" thing across the board, not specific to this release, but friends are friends, so whatever... I'd like to hear more from these two bands as one song each leaves only a partial impression in my mind. Short, but good.
[Rosewater]
Running time - 9:00 (approximately), Tracks: 2
[Notable tracks: both are decent tracks]
Rosewater Records - http://www.rosewaterrecords.com
