I know very little about the country of Norway. Sure, I could hit up Google or Wikipedia and shoot off some facts about their leading exports or how many Olympic downhill skiers were born there, but it would be nothing more than useless information. All you need to know, my faithful readers, is that Death is Not Glamorous calls Oslo, Norway home.
This five-song self-titled release is the band's demo from last year in re-released form courtesy of the fine people at State of Mind Recordings. Musically the band is very fitting with the recent craze of fast-paced melodic hardcore bands. "The Fallback" opens the album and it is immediately apparent that these guys love Lifetime. There is nothing wrong with that being the case; I'm just stating the obvious. Where as the previous song leaned in the melodic punk direction, "Think You Can' is more hardcore oriented, it even has a nice breakdown in the middle of the song. The three remaining songs return to the Lifetime-esque style of writing: fast punk with the occasional melodic guitar-part thrown in to jazz things up. Vocally, Christian Meddaas' delivery is slightly raspy, reminiscent of Tom Corrigan's days in Silent Majority.
The packaging has a nice aesthetic feel to it. It's made up of various landscape photos at dusk with a graphing grid layered over it. The actual CD is one of those that has the big clear space, as there is very little data burned onto the CD, with the band's name and the cover design in white ink.
It's no secret who is going to love this band. And while I did thoroughly enjoy this EP, its replay value is rather low, especially considering the demo has been circulating for some time now.
7.5/10
Recently Death is Not Glamorous' highly praised demo was re-released for sale in the US. During the time of it's pressing the band hit the studio and recorded six new songs. And that is what we have here on Undercurrents.
"The Three C's" picks up exactly where the band left off on their debut EP. High-energy melodic punk that draws heavily from that certain band from New Jersey. Though, there is a hint of pop-punk in this first song - just a smidge though. "Foreground" follows in similar fashion, minus the pop. "Too Bad A.C. Ain't in Charge No More" started off sounding like the two previous tracks, then they threw in a nice break in the middle of the song; this added some much needed character to the record. "Second Step" is the hardcore-inspired song of this EP; think Stay Gold. Death is Not Glamorous close out this new EP in a fashion that is familiar to those that enjoy what they do, a little two familiar though.
This time for a layout, the band and label opted for an underwater theme - fitting considering the title. The main piece features a Great White fighting some sort of octopus. I really enjoyed the bright colors of the layout, and sharks are pretty cool; I always watch features on them on television, as they're quite captivating.
Undercurrents was a little disappointing after listening to their debut EP. Everything that they did on the first EP they tried to recreate here. The problem is I already heard it. The songs of this record are solid, and I am very much a fan of the sound they've got going on. It's just that all these songs sound the same. But then again, that is the same complaint that many people have with Lifetime, so maybe they'll take that as a compliment.
6.0/10
