I hate being lied too. I remember wanting this CD for review because the one-sheet was all about this Orlando, Florida band being a "Dischord-Style" punk band. Well I can tell you right now that they don't sound anything like Minor Threat. They do however try and co-opt a very vague 90's Dischords sound. If I really stretch my listening comprehension abilities I do hear a Jawbox riff here and some quirky Shudder to Think parts there. Nevertheless, there is nothing else on Ghosts in the City that reminds of anything from Washington D.C.
What History does remind me of is a very arty version of Thursday. The drumming is way too busy, there's too many keyboards controlling the songs, and the song themselves sound like a bunch of parts throw together in hat. The band would just pick them out at will and think, "Okay this part will go here right after this one and then we will pick another part out of the blue." It's a mismatch of overbearing pretentiousness filtered through some good ideas with less than stellar results. I will give it up to History they don't sound like every other band out there but then again they don't really do anything that makes me want to keep listening to them.
This band isn't that bad at all actually. The music is really inventive, somewhat catchy, and probably a band full of nice talented people. I'm still bitter over the whole Dischord thing. Oh well, them's the breaks.
