Reviews: Dead Red Sea - Dead Red Sea 7"
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Ex members of Cross My Heart playing with less crunch mixed with a retrospective approach to alternative rock maintaining the same level of emotion and dynamics. An incredible blend of stripped down indie-rock and emo. Similar to Chamberlain and Jets to Brazil.
Stick Figure Distro (http://www.stickfiguredistro.com)
Featuring two unreleased tracks following their recently released album, the Dead Red Sea is another music project from Cross My Heart's Ryan Skellet but with Dead Red Sea he experiments with styles and songwriting never explored before. A clever, covert fusion of rock, blues, folk and country lead by modern, sophisticated song writing to create a strong indie-rock release.
Scanner (#12)
This band's recent Deep Elm album impressed and here the subtle, introvert janglings of this band captivate a bit more. Think SUNNY DAY REAL ESTATE stealing some of CHAMBERLAIN's moves and you"re close. The lead track in particular. Flip the 7" slab of wax over and you got something a bit more up tempo and breezy, but still subtle not too distant from the tunesmithery PYLON are so good at. Decent packaging too from this moderately new UK label. Way better than fucking Appleseed Cast.
Joost van Ingen at Inside Knowledge (#5)
A mixture of indie-rock and stripped down emo. In the 2 songs on this 7" tries ex-Cross my Heart front man Ryan Skellet to express his feelings about coping with the truth. I hope this is not the best of Dead Red Sea. Im looking forward to their full length; because I think they can, and will do better. The sound is just not well balanced and they are still searching for their own.
Fracture (#22)
A brace of decent indie pop songs that heavily brings the NEW RISING SONS to mind. It has that same hint of an emo-rock band gone indie to it, which of course both bands are (or where in the case of NEW RISING SONS). In the same way that a good few emo rock bands are only a few paces away from mainstream rock, this sort of music is only a few paces from a lot of mainstream indie bands (whom ill refrain from mentioning for fear of showing up my shocking ineptitude of actually defining one indie band fro another). "Gone" is a downbeat pop song, slow paced and sentimental, with the heartfelt vocals you"d expect from the old singer of CROSS MY HEART. judging by these two tracks, this sort of mid-paced sound seems to be DRS's forte. Flipside track "brightside" picks up the pace with that classic indie drumbeat and a few more pop hooks. Both rather fine, if not essential, tracks to while away a few minutes with. The artwork is dreary by the way, fortunately the music isn't. (PR)
