Chugging retro-’80s rock with emo overtones and a strange vocal effect that sounds like a double gone overboard. Gets more alternative as it drones on.
Imitation can be flattery, but not when it’s executed like kindergardeners. Unoriginal as hell, they’ve somehow turned the DC-style vocals into annoying yelps.
No doubt there’s some sweet pop rock here, a teen girl-power anthem or two, and an nice lil cover of Metallica’s “Nothing Else Matters,” but it’s no I Bificus.
Guitarist/vocalist Chris Simpson, formerly of emo kings Mineral and indie popsters The Gloria Record, has had a career not unlike that of Jeremy Enigk.
The Avett Brothers take time out from intensity by picking at their acoustics, banjos, and slow-burning tales of Southern life (drinking, loving, killing).
Complex harmonies are stacked on dense, mammoth guitars, with industrial synth and samples at times in the dungeon with Ministry, others, surfing with Sublime.
The shadowy, creepy, misty, doom of Trent Reznor with a cracked mic’n’acoustic guitar strumming away on a crisp New England October night with Edgar Allen Poe.