Minutes To Recover

Top To Tale

Written by: PP on 08/02/2013 22:18:23

You often hear people raving about how pop punk is the easiest style of music to write, but it's really harder than it seems in practice. The average listener will never hear about the boring or even shitty bands in the genre, but the reality is that not every pop punk band is automatically awesome. Case in point: Minutes To Recover from Manchester, UK, whose debut album "Top To Tale" has more issues than I care to dissect in this review, but here's just a few to get us started.

One, their vocalist has probably the blandest, most forgettable voice I've come across in the style. Lacking any sort of charisma or confidence, his emotive delivery feels weak, and even worse, annoying because of its whiny stance most of the time - and this coming from a huge fan of The Wonder Years (etc) style pop punk. What's worse, there are plenty of moments where his singing is either far too nasal (and not the good kind like New Found Glory's Jordan Pundik) or even outright off-tune. And that's just the singer. The instrumentals are dime-a-dozen pop punk with roughened edges (due to almost non-existent production) but without the crunch needed for the raw style to work, or the polish needed for the poppier one. It's just really, really bland all of the time.

On a few tracks the band add screamed vocals to contrast the main vocals. Here's where they really nosedive into emo territory, but ironically, this is where they are at their most interesting. The screams add another layer that's been missing in their sound for most of the album due to the monotonous nasal style of the lead cleans, but they alone aren't enough to rescue this album. "Top To Tale" is simply an example of how to NOT play emotive pop punk. It is devoid of energy, without catchy vocal harmonies, and lacks enthusiasm and the summery vibe required to pull this type of thing true. Sorry guys.

3

Download: This Friendship Sank, Stereohype
For the fans of: bland emo pop punk
Listen: Facebook

Release date 26.11.2012
Self-Released

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