You’ve heard it before a hundred times. You’ve thought it yourself.
Punk rock is a safe genre.
While I generally hate on talk like this, promoting genre classification over substance and artistic focus, there is a certain argument that can be made (and has been, oh, let’s say a hundred times). When you hear of a “punk record” there are expectations when you put it on, and those expectations are rarely to feel a rush of inspired energy.
Epic Problem have that energy. It’s fierce, powerful, fast, and angry. None of that sounds like anything new there, does it? Yet Epic Problem’s new EP, Lines, delivers all of those emotions. On paper it sounds typical and perhaps forgettable, but this four-piece Derbyshire band is doing it right. When Jake McCullough’s voice hits over a ferocious beat in the opening title track, it establishes itself. It’s gruff and fist-in-the-air and, right when it seems like that could get monotonous, the melody picks up and delivers the song into an area that straddles street punk anthem and melodicore reflection. It’s a tightwalk the band continues through all four songs, as well as with last year’s All Broken EP. It’s exactly the sound I’m a sucker for, toying with listeners via the earworm, yet blasting aggression sure to wreck your vocal chords. It ends with a Beltones cover.
The band sprung up in 2010 and this is their third release—now we just need a full-length to see if that energy can carry in something that plays for longer than 10 minutes as even with just four jams here, there’s definitely some bleedthrough between songs in terms of the overall sound.
