Rockfreaks.net

Charlie Brown

Demo EP

Written by: PP on 02/11/2010 02:23:36

The Danish music scene used to be all about heavy metal or indie rock with a vast vacuum of empty space in between. Nowadays most genres are well represented if not nationally, then at least in small pockets of local scenes around the country. Fredericia has its hardcore scene, Copenhagen is full of aspiring punk bands, and Jylland is the home of dozens of metal bands. One style that Denmark has largely missed out on, however, has been the southern rock/metal style, and that's where young hopefuls Charlie Brown step in with their four-track demo EP. Their sound owes its entire life to Every Time I Die, except where the latter draw from hardcore punk to form their sound, these guys lean more towards the Norma Jean school of metalcore as the platform from which they leap towards the southern grooves.

The resulting cocktail is surprisingly enjoyable. Lead by strained, throaty singer whose pipes are a heavy groove weapon in itself, this band is all about the groove, groove, and groove. They take their cues from older Maylene & The Sons Of Disaster albums, picking off the best parts and mixing them with the explosive basement energy of ETID to come up with a sound that has potential. The showcase track for said potential has to be "Kid Bomber", a catchy piece where they resort to slightly cleaner and more melodic singing during the chorus to give the song some pop-accessibility. It's a very good song, and if you ask me, the band should consider integrating more clean melody in the vein of this song on their future efforts. That said, the high energy ETID-explosion of a track like "Snitches'll Bleed" will likely wreck havoc in a live environment, and is currently only hindered from its full impact by frankly terrible production/mixing decisions. The levels are simply off the charts awful all around the record, leaving the guitar sound breaking and cracking precisely in the same way as when you connect your iPod to an external speaker source and turn up its volume to 100% instead of, say, 90%. Go ahead and try it at home.

That being said, this is self-produced (as far as I'm aware) and their very first effort at recording a finished product, so I have no problem writing off such troubles at this stage merely as a part of the learning curve they are still on. The key importance and what to take away from this review is, however, that I'm very much liking this stuff, which already puts them above a ton of other Danish bands that send us their demos/early recordings. The groove throne of Dødning in Denmark is under threat by the sounds of it.

Download: Kid Bomber
For the fans of: Every Time I Die, Maylene & The Sons Of Disaster, Norma Jean, Dødning
Listen: Myspace

Release date 27.08.2010
Self-Released