[avatar user=”Mosh” size=”50″ align=”left” /]Seeing as Newcastle United have had a crap couple of weeks, I thought I’d bring a bit of cheer to Tyneside by flinging North Seasons at you. Based around The Toon, this melodic hardcore five-piece have their debut EP – Eyes For The Blind – out on January 21st. The first single, “Silhouettes”, is out now and the video is below.
As with many bands I’ve encountered recently, their music’s been self-recorded. According to the press release I have, “in their bedroom”. I pity their neighbours… North Seasons’ aim is to take the heavier music and get it into the mainstream. Will Eyes For The Blind be a step in the right direction?
I’d say yes. While I doubt the mainstream will ever wholly accept the harsher vocals (and, frankly, that’s their problem), the mixture of very heavy yet catchy riffs and interesting changes of pace make this a bit more accessible than “full-on” hardcore. Don’t worry, though, it’s certainly not lost any aggression in its move towards a fence-sitting position.
There’s an element of the experimental in the likes of “Silhouette”, with some quiet passages filled only with gentle drumbeat and unusual guitar tone. These really just fill the gaps between crunching riffage, and allow a calm before the storm.
“A New World Order” has a sneaky lo-fi intro before launching into a constant heavy barrage that runs for near the full length of the song. “Bitter” is an unusual track. Half of it is spoken word poetry before backing guitars and a heavy drum beat arrive to make it sound almost industrial before ending on a crashing high. As I said earlier, there’s a bit of an experimental sound going on here.
Probably the most melodic track on the EP is “Good News” with the largest amount of non-shouty vocals and a nice choral refrain running under the main song. That’s not to say it doesn’t pummel once it kicks in. If there’s a moshpit-friendly track, then it’s “Never Forget This”. As well as ridiculously fast-paced verses and a chorus which just begs to be spent running around belting people, it also lays claim to the most ethereal segments on the album. Very much opposites attracting.
The title track is almost nu-metal in sound to begin with before dropping like an anvil into a very slow, heavy hardcore track with lilting guitars pulling it into the melodic area.
Eyes for the Blind is refreshingly new, yet familiar. A great piece of work if they really did record it in a bedroom. Unless, of course, their bedroom is the size of a recording studio. Either way, it’s a damn fine listen.
Track listing:
- Intro
- Silhouettes
- A New World Order
- Bitter
- Good News
- Never Forget This
- Eyes For The Blind
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