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BANDS: Punk
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Only Midnight: Self-Titled EP Over
the last 6 or 7 years, theres been a proliferation of acoustic-based
musicians throughout the southeast. Most
of this can be chalked up to the success of Dave Matthews, and this abundance of
non-threatening folk-rock music has made it hard to find the great bands among
the mediocre. Unfortunately,
this 5-piece North Carolina band cannot yet be included in this list.
Although they add violin to the basic guitar/bass/drums setup, they do
not use any of their instruments to their full potential.
Out of these four songs, theres nothing about them that really stands
out or makes each one individual. My
biggest (and most common) gripe with this sort of music is that the singers
rarely pay attention to writing vocal melodies they just find a chord
progression and sing over it. This
might make it easier to write lyrics, but it makes the song chug along to the
end theres no dynamic.
Many of the college/indie bands that are mentioned on this website (such as Guster, Agents of Good Roots, and Jump, Little Children) add unique instrumentation to their sound, and actually use it to make the songs more interesting. Although Rachel McLaughlin sounds like shes a great violin player, her parts are relegated to the back of the mix, without taking advantage of the possibilities she presents. Without strong vocals, theres nothing for her to play off of or complement. These slightly uncommon (at least in rock music) instruments can be used in many other ways not just for solos. All
in all, Only Midnight offers basic frat party rock, in the style of countless,
nameless, others good music to drink a beer to, but eventually fleeting.
In their press packet, guitarist John Briggs says they will
single-handedly bring down the boy band era.
If this demo is any indication, we might have a few more Justin
Timberlake filled years left to come.
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