Overreact - Violent Eyes [EP]

Schizofreniks Records

February 27, 2009, 06:07 PM

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It is always difficult to look at a band in a positive light when they list Topman and Toni & Guy as their influences. Rather conveniently, only today however did I get a haircut in said salon and bought an overpriced badly made jacket from the store in question. But, embarrassingly timed contradictions aside, I still stand by my opinion about bands of this sort. The area that I live in is swamped with bands that strut around looking like Topman’s window display of mannequins that has magically come to life and has broken into a music instrument store. Every single one of these bands draw influence from punk, new wave and a general anger at the state of music.

Lundan Tahn’s Overreact are unfortunately no different. Sounding like a pissed off Kooks cover band with overly fuzzy, badly produced generic summer sounding guitars in the background, kind of like a pretentious Kids In Glasshouses; simply on the basis that KIGH don’t have the nerve to even attempt to describe their music as ‘punk’ as Overreact’s MySpace page claims. The track ‘Violent Eyes’ starts off fairly well but then descents into a constant lull as the vocals are spat out with venom and can be heard clipping the limiter on the recording – not common practice in this sort of music, and for a good reason. ‘She Said’ however, as a song, flows a lot better that ‘Violent Eyes’ and the fuzziness of the guitars actually adds something to the song, but although I’m sure that it would be a live favourite, it is just way too forgettable. The final track, an acoustic version of ‘Violent Eyes’ is incredibly surprising; in all of the wrong ways. The beautifully warm sounding atmosphere that is set by the acoustic guitar is trampled and destroyed by the atrocious vocals (imagine a 8ft bear shitting on a daisy on a gorgeous summer’s day and you’re on the right tracks). For some reason, the band seem to think that it’s okay to almost shout certain parts of the song over the top of the melodic, blissful chords. In fact, I have left this review at the bottom of my pile to make sure that I can spend time thinking of as many negative words to describe this atrocity as possible. So far my favourite few (in alphabetical order) are abominable, atrocious, deplorable, dire, ghastly, horrendous, repulsive and wretched.

Have I missed any belters?
Answers on the back of a postcard please to the usual address.

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