The Phantom Limbs

Random Hymns (Gold Standard Labs)
by Scott Hefflon

Like most stuff of this ilk, it’s a damn good start down the right dark and noisy path, but to paraphrase Swimming with Sharks, this is the microwave generation and everyone wants and feels entitled NOW, and they haven’t earned it. This EP, like The Faint and other trendy indie rock, is shallow, and settling far too easily. They’re knock-offs, in the case, of dark carnival early ’80s British Goth punk/new wave (when you could put those two genres together, unlike now when the punks with silly hair and the Goths with silly hair fight each other, instead of the real enemy: “them”). There’s some nice off-kilter rhythms and freakshow keyboards, but it’s all 101 stuff. It’s the tip of the iceburg, and all these lazy indie kids never push themselves or their bands to go the distance. So yet again, I hate trendy kids and trendy bands, and they’ll all outgrow it and have nothing to look back on cuz they’ve all too willing to settle for knock-offs.
(www.goldstandardlabs.com)