Here is a band that tries to jump on the post punk / death rock revival. They dide a decent enough job with their first album to make me willing to invest the time to listen this album. At first things are worth my time as Their sound is more concise and marginally more polished on the first track than what I remember from their previous release.The problem is it's the third song before I notice it is no longer the first. Things do shift by "Vacancy". Post punk does tend to work off a similar Joy Division like approach to a single note droning guitar tension. That is happening here. They have cpatured the sound and are attmepting to work on the song side of said equation .I find myself having to listen to this album multiple times in order to differentiate the songs from one another.
They crank up the guitar in a few more places on "Skeleton". Really it's the bass line to "Bubble Baby" that makes it stand out from this song and the bounce to the sugary punk vocals. I think the energy and stright forward nature of this makes it more punk than post punk. I am not sure how spooky they want you to think they are. This was more apparent on the previous album, this album is not very dark at all. "Parlor Games' highlights what I do not like about the punk of the average punk rock. It is sloppy with the guitars just banged out. Most punk I like draw from rock , like the Stooges and gives you a song to latch onto rather than feeling like a rushed mess.
I think giving this album a 7 is more than generous. Do not come here looking for death rock anything, as it is more punk than any of that. Are there qualities shared with Christian Death, yes in the fact that Rozz and the boys were also influenced by punk. But that is all.
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