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Expect Nothing

The Movie Eatery

Written by: PP on 10/07/2009 19:23:35

It's strange that there aren't more punk bands from Israel given the political climate of the place. It's like a mecca for any starting politically charged act considering the turmoil plaguing the country day in and day out, so emerging Greg Graffins should be bursting with ideas for songs. Realistically, there must be a whole bunch of them that we just don't hear about over here in Europe (or in the US for that matter), case in point being Expect Nothing, a band that I recently stumbled across by chance, so I figured I'll give them some publicity through a review of their rather decent debut album "The Movie Eatery".

What we're dealing with here is typical skatepunk with distinct roots in melodic hardcore found in the raw and edgy guitars. The 48-second album opener "Product Of The Month" sounds like it was taken directly from a mid 90s Lagwagon album, and elsewhere you'll be able to hear similarities to Millencolin's "Life On A Plate" as well as a small doses of technical guitars similar to Rufio. All songs are played at ridiculous speeds, where focus is more on the smooth skatepunk vocal harmony and solid chorus than the guitars, which mostly just whistle by the listener in power-chord mode. Think of a slightly rougher No Use For A Name on speed and you get the point.

Here and there you'll find a great chorus that you'll be singing along, "Your Story" being probably the best example. But even though almost all songs have solid melodies that'll have your head bobbing along, they aren't quite strong enough to threaten NUFAN or Lagwagon from their throne as the best skatepunk bands out there. What I'm saying here is that although a song like "Everything Is Temporary" is good, it's still missing the strength of songs like "Violins" or "Bullion", which is why it come across as merely 'decent' instead of 'awesome'. However, if any of the for the fans of hit frighteningly close to your heart, you should have no problem checking out "The Movie Eatery" and getting a good number of spins out of it. Just don't expect anything that han't been tried-and-tested before.

Download: Your Story, Masquerade
For the fans of: Rufio, Millencolin, Lagwagon, Much The Same, No Use For A Name
Listen: Myspace

Release date January 2009
Self-Released