DEMO EP REVIEW LAST DITCH EFFORT 1. DIE TRYING www.lastditcheffort.co.uk
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Incredibly, this is the second demo from London band Last Ditch Effort, who have only been together since April
2002. Not only is it good to see that the band is keen to produce new music, but it’s
very pleasing when you also hear this quality of the songs on a demo.
Last Ditch Effort create tunes of aggressive noisecore with intense screamo vocals that are tempered with emo-esque singing and combined with melody. It’s like Drowningman meets Thursday but with English accents. Each track manages to maintain an intense atmosphere, which occasionally shines with empathy but more often darkens with fury. They play emotional vocals and harmonies against a background of screaming madness, which gives huge depth to the songs and allows the aggression to sustain while creating a shape that can channel much more subtle feelings to the listener. Then just when you think you know where it’s all going - for instance during the midpoint of ‘Can’t You See’ - off kilter rhythm patterns briefly emerge, as if sprinkled into the main seam of the song in an effort to catch you out. This is an excellent EP showing staggering song writing maturity for a band so embryonic. These are songs that smash you in the mouth but buy you a drink afterwards, they are repugnant but at the same time somehow sumptuous. With vocals of shivering mantra then rasping ferocity, with music that enchants before violating, it’s a quite magical concoction that definitely worked it’s spell here. Rigsby (9th January, 2003) |
