These Green Eyes

Relapse To Recovery

Written by: PP on 24/03/2009 19:59:15

People always call Bayside the band who have always followed in the footsteps of Alkaline Trio, utilizing the exact same elements from the nostalgia-style melodic singing to the subtle, upon repeat-listening ridiculously catchy instrumentation style with great success. Switch the position of Bayside and Alk3 in that sentence, replace Alk3 with These Green Eyes, and you've got their debut album "Relapse To Recovery", which sounds so much like Bayside I'd swear it was written by Raneri & co if I didn't know better. Most of that's due to the vocalist's melancholic, nostalgia-filled voice that's almost identical to Raneri's.

That description alone should give you good concept of how "Relapse The Recovery" sounds, but just in case you're not familiar with either band (why the hell not!?), I'll go in a bit more detail here. Basically, the idea is to take the best from pop, punk, and emo/post-hardcore, and lump them together into something I'll just go ahead and call emotionally charged rock. "Paramedic" is a good example, as it has an instrumental base in post-hardcore, just like "Kick The Crutch", but both boast with a good deal of pop-sensibility at the same time, nicely combining the two into a sound perfectly at the mid-point of the two genres. At times it feels like Bayside's haunting melodies ("At The End") are crashing against Silverstein's melancholic clean melodies from "Discovering The Waterfront" (just listen to "Blood Sweat And Beers", tell me he doesn't sound exactly like Shane Told?), and sometimes it's merely peaceful indie rock that morphs seamlessly into pounding emocore passages. So I guess you could call it 'emo' without the negative connotation of the word, meaning no breakdowns, no screaming, and no stupid cut-my-wrists-with-daggers lyricism. Just great melodies and subtly catchy choruses that have much more lasting power than any of your trendiest emo/post-hardcore bands do.

One of the reasons "Relapse To Recovery" works so well is that in almost every song, the vocalist drives his voice to a really high-range, almost to the verge of screaming, only to transition smoothly into a soothing lower-range style almost instantly after. Think of those moments when you'd hear someone like Anthony Green reach to the top of his scale on "Translating The Name", where his transition to screaming feels only natural. This album is filled with those moments without ever going for the actual scream, and that's why the songs are so solid. In summary, this is a bit poppier than Alkaline Trio and Bayside, but it's equally haunting and good. Great debut.

8

Download: Drunk Driver, Blood Sweat And Beers, Paramedic
For the fans of: Bayside, Silverstein, Alkaline Trio
Listen: Myspace

Release date 24.03.2009
Blackledge Music

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