Tuesday, July 24, 2012

SBSR: Athletics “Who You Are Is Not Enough”

AthleticsWho You Are Is Not Enough
Recently, I’ve been downloading and listening to music like crazy from Band Camp.   This is a review of a group of songs by the same band I got from Band Camp- usually it constitutes an EP.   This is a song-by-song review and it is never to exceed six songs.   At the end, I will tell you the “Recommended Downloading Level”, which means whether or not I think you should spend your time downloading these songs.   It’s on a scale from 1 to 5, 5 meaning that you should stop reading my review and download these songs immediately and 1 meaning that if you even think about downloading these songs your computer will be infected with a horrific bad music virus.   Enjoy.

<1> “I” – This song starts off all weird and ambient, like signals from a space station and I immediately think I’ve stumbled upon some more crazy instrumental noise.   It’s kicking in a little bit with guitar notes now though, like maybe the transmission is getting urgent.    All these songs are Roman numerals, by the way, for those who, um… I don’t know why I felt the need to point that out, but maybe it’s because the song feels like it’s building to something but it’s still not quite there yet.   Now we have a different guitar riff going on.   Oh and here come some vocals that sound pleasant.   There are some nice transmissions going on in the background.   And now the vocals are screaming like Thrice, whilst the music is in a blind fury like some kind of beautiful chaos.   Holy Geez, man, this just unexpectedly kicked in and made me a fan.   I haven’t really felt this way about hearing a song since the first time I heard the band Thursday, which was before “Full Collapse” came out for the record.    The music seems to be tapering back off now, but there are still some vocals.   It was about five minutes of crazy music and thirty seconds and deluge of vocals.   Wow.   What a song.
<2> “II” – We open Apollo’s Revenge with some notes that sound pretty serious.  I’m kind of nervous now because I don’t entirely know what’s going to happen or when.   If record labels still matter though, some major label will sign Athletics and push them to the moon because this is what all music should be about right here.   Just wow.   I’m still flustered from the first track, but here we go into nine more minutes of Rocky telling Adrian “yo”.    Okay, so maybe these vocals kind of remind me of Silverchair right now, but that’s okay.   And when he kind of gets higher with the words, it gets very intense.   Back to the flurry of music, but the sort of screaming vocals combined with it reminds me of Recover.    He keeps singing lines relating to the title and for anyone who has ever been told by their wife or significant other that they “needed more”, these words ring true in scary and unthinkable ways.    Five minutes in and the song sound like it’s ending… But like Rocky Balboa, it is back.   It’s still a nice piece of music, but the vocals haven’t come back yet.  We still have almost two minutes left in the song though, so like Mick I’m not counting anyone out… And here they come back.    The end has a nice crunchy build to it.
<3> “III” – Enter Drago.   This song must break me.   Into our third song of drums power their way through some scream-singing, I looked this band up and managed to find that they are from New Jersey, same city as Bam Bam Bigelow.   They also thank Deep Elm on their Band Camp page, so I wonder if they’re on a label.    Regardless, when I get back to the east coast I am making it my personal mission to see this band.  There is a lot of technical music in this six minute song, the vocals as has been the pattern thus far sparse.   Now some whoa-oh-oh’s…  And the song is done.
<4> “IV” – Now Drago is going to kill Rocky like he killed Apollo Creed.  “If he dies, he dies”.    So upon further research I’ve learned that if these guys aren’t on Deep Elm, at least one of their songs is because they are what the label calls “post rock” and you can download some free sampler from the DE site that has them on it I suppose.  So apparently there are several other albums by this band out there and they have been released on Deep Elm.  Apparently I am slow to the punch once again.   Serves me right for leaving the music scene for all those years.
<5> “V” – And we open with piano.   Time will heal the deepest wounds—that and Rocky VI.     This song seems so short compared to the others.
                By virtually staying out of the music scene, I have apparently missed the music known as Athletics, which is just proving that there really is nothing to do in NJ other than make music.    If you’re like me and you’ve missed out on this band, then these five songs should convince you that this is some truly amazing music here.
Recommended Downloading Level:  5/5

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