The Epidemic – Quarantine Days [Album]
 

What is there to be said? Quarantine Days is a great album with plenty of humorous quips, songs that flow well, catchy choruses and is light hearted enough to be enjoyed at any time – but I just don’t LOVE it. The Epidemic are essentially a punk band, but I will give them credit for varying their sound a lot throughout the full 14 tracks of Quarantine Days as this is nothing to be sniffed at. It is clear that a lot of effort and attention has gone into the writing of this record and the musicianship and vocals are of an excellent level and frequently prove how diversely talented The Epidemic are.

You’re waiting for it so here it comes...

HOWEVER...

...all of these factors do not mash together as well as perhaps planned, resulting in a record that just does not sound solid enough. The Epidemic are a band that are best appreciated track by track as then it’s more difficult to put your finger on them and to sum them up due to the quirky range of genres within each track. When listened to as a complete album (arguably as it was intended), Quarantine Days struggles to flow and this is often distracting from the music itself. Occasionally, as a result of the cameo-appearances of outside genres (e.g., 1950’s do-wop, jazz drums and metal riffs that James Hetfield would be proud to have written) it can be mistaken for a comedy record which is a massive problem as I presume that this was not the intention; and this is obviously a great shame.

It seems needless to pick out individual tracks to describe for the sake of ‘good journalism’, as they all differ so much within the fairly broad ‘pop-punk’ spectrum. It would perhaps be more useful to suggest that you check The Epidemic out for yourself.

Compared to many of the new bands that I listen to, The Epidemic are considerably tighter, better and can boast of rivalling song writing abilities. They have proven their worth with Quarantine Days and have put out a selection of tracks to be proud of, but note that I opt not to use the word ‘album’.