Chay Snowdon – Tough Guys Die First
Chay Snowdon is the missing link between Humbug-era Arctic Monkeys and the skinny, rickety vocals of Geddy Lee or David Surkamp. From the opening riffs, the garage-rock bass and guitar riffs charge through the gates like a pack of elephants forced to sniff a pepper shaker.
“Tough Guys Die First” sounds like a song that the band wrote in order to headline their local club. It’s big, hooky and somewhat humorous. If you’re going to hear it from a distant car that’s running at top speed, you will still be able to recognize it as an indie-disco heavy-hitter.
Unlike their main inspirations, Chay Snowdon don’t seem too interested in either the arthouse or the nuthouse. With that being said, there’s clear quality to the music they’re making. Whenever live events that tend to take place out in a field are going to be reopened, expect this group to jump up on stage.
Deaf Autumn – Let it out
DEAF AUTUMN are a band that wears their feelings out on their sleeve. While I’m new to their music, I presume that this is their charm. After all, screamo and post-hardcore the two distant cousins of punk-rock that they represent value true connections between band and audience. Revealing lyrics and lack of corrective soundscapes are part of the deal.
Here’s the honest problem I have with modern post-hardcore. In a bid to get the production values to rise to a standard that would make songs easy to play on the radio, oftentimes, the demented, emotional, ragged sound of these bands gets chopped down.
This could have turned out to be the problem with “LET IT OUT”. Still, DEAF AUTUMN fight the production touch-ups every step of the way. The trio tramples through the song. The group’s two vocalists trade growls and melodramatic vocals that generally hit the mark and are highly memorable. The echoey drum sound fills out the canvas.
The result is a catchy, emotional post-hardcore tune. It just makes you wonder what they’d be able to do with it on a dark night, in a darkly-lit club, against a cheap PA.
