I think this is the first material from the
Fiction since their solid, but not particularly spectacular LP that
came out on Level Plane. And I have just attempted to play their
side on mute. Score! A blank record. Ok, lets try again. The Fiction
have two songs of emo type goings on. “A Strange Case of Lemmy
Caution” comes out quickly with fast and thrashy guitar and
hoarse vocals, before slowing things down into more of a chug, and
then dropping in a really nice twinkle finale with distant screamed
vocals and subdued spoken parts too. Very nice. “Inside Outsiders”
which accelerates and has a nice melodic groove. The song again
has some cool subtler touches and makes good use of varying the
pace of things at times. I really enjoyed their stuff, definitely
a good progression from the LP.
Birthday Boyz are new to me, and they sing
a song about Michael Jordan, and play it in an emo fashion. It has
a really special buildup, starting out with gently twinkling guitars
sounding all sombre and pretty before it bounds into ferocious screaming
action. It's mid 90's emo in the vein of stuff like Breakwater and
all the other bands that knew how to mix up wonderfully melodic
stuff with crying and frantic guitar playing and falling on the
floor. It seems a bit weird that they would scream so much about
Michael Jordan but hey. I like this a lot, especially the pulsating
ending.
released by: waking records and mccarthyism
and a label that doesn't have a website.