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Southpaw Fakers

EP 2011

Written by: PP on 15/12/2011 01:39:10

Southpaw Fakers are a tiny melodic punk quartet from Cheltenham, England, who released their debut release, simply titled "EP 2011", a few months ago. In the past, they would've been called melodic hardcore given how closely their sound follows the late 90s sound of Lifetime, but these days the genre name is reserved to the metalcore/hardcore hybrids so we'll have to do with melodic punk, despite the record owning a rough-around-the-edges guitar sound that's rooted in hardcore.

For the duration of just over twelve minutes, Southpaw Fakers spend their time worshipping that very sound with clear parallels to other Lifetime clones like Shook Ones, Dolarhyde and Go Rydell. That might bother some listeners, but I for one have always cherished the high-energy onslaught of bright guitars and hardcore energy that Lifetime's classic albums sport, so any band who continues in the same footsteps and faithfully reproduces the seminal sound, and writes good, catchy punk songs in the process is going to be in my good books. That's also the case with Southpaw Fakers and their debut EP. The release oozes of infectious melody and energetic vocals, which have just the right amount of strain attached to give them character, and when the cleaner ones sound a little bit like Caleb Lionheart, you know you're on the right track. This is an excellent debut EP, which leaves the listener wanting for more.

Download: Inflatable Elvis, Crayonfist
For the fans of: Shook Ones, Lifetime, Dolarhyde, Go Rydell
Listen: Bandcamp

Release date 06.09.2011
Self-Released