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1000 Degrees

Back To A New Way

Written by: PP on 15/07/2014 21:17:42

Could this be the best punk band in Italy at the moment? 1000 Degrees from Genoa certainly make that case on their sophomore album "Back To A New Way", which requires about twenty-five seconds of listening from the beginning before you'll be convinced it's going to be an awesome record. Blazingly fast, insanely technical guitars fly past you at breakneck speeds while clean and semiclean vocals deliver one catchy passage after another, all in perfect harmony with bands like Belvedere and This Is A Standoff, whom 1000 Degrees leave breathing dust on several occasions throughout the album.

Yes, we're dealing with high-octane technical skate punk with a touch of hardcore punk embedded within, which isn't necessarily spectacular in itself. But it is the constant shifts in time-signatures, changes in tempo and rhythmic accelerations into impressively complicated guitar licks in a consistent manner that makes 1000 Degrees definitely worth a listen for fans of either one of the aforementioned bands. And although they aren't has hardcore punk tuned as the technical chaos meets melody of A Wilhelm Scream, they do come close on several occasions with riff structures that certainly have drawn some influence from "Career Suicide".

Most songs on the record feature technical riffage that can easily be described as jaw-dropping in its nature if for no other reason than for its manic math-rock style delivery at unbelievable speeds - see the bridge section of "Great Expectations" or the blinding fretwork on "Downhill" as great examples. On top of that, the vocal work on a track like "Losing Weight" means you're bouncing off the walls at small venues screaming along while your more instrumentally oriented friends are busy with air guitars. It's infectiously catchy and among the best European skate punk tracks you'll have heard in the last two years. And the album is packed with such examples, so my question is where have 1000 Degrees been hiding? European punk rock doesn't get much better than this.

Download: Downhill, Losing Weight, Sayonara, Great Expectations
For the fans of: A Wilhelm Scream, Belvedere, After The Fall, Rebuke, This Is A Standoff, Caleb Lionheart
Listen: Facebook

Release date 07.04.2014
Indiebox Music