This Changes Everything
Various Artists
Second Nature
This is a sampler of past and future Second Nature releases and there’s some stuff on here that makes me very excited. Anasarca has a song from an upcoming discography (!) that’s nice to hear again. The broken vocals, the contrasts of strained power and aching melodies… so good. The Blood Brothers make my eyes pop open a little wider with their sass-flinging effected vocals amidst some tense energy that’s allowed to break into screamed vocals and bursting guitars. Coalesce and Isis both spew forth metal-rich insanity. Grade fuses metal, hardcore, and emo with sung and screamed vocals on one of my favorite songs of theirs from the 10”. Kid Killowatt have a nice, full-textured attack that calms down enough to let the tension build. Nicely sung vocals amidst swirling, driving melodies and lots of energy. Euclid mixes bombast with some odd structuring and angular guitars for a dense rollercoaster. Reggie & The Full Effect includes members of The Get Up Kids and lean towards the Weezer school of poppy hooks amidst rock while mixing in some keyboards. A smooth song from Sharks Keep Moving closes things out. Also stuff from the Casket Lottery, Kill Creek, the Higher Burning Fire, Waxwing, and Krakatoa that personally didn’t do much for me. But overall a nice comp!
Second Nature, P.O. Box 11543, Kansas City, MO 64138; http://www.secondnaturerecordings.com
