Spouting Rhetoric,
ImbalanceContrary to popular belief, there is an underground UK punk scene! No, really there is. I know that all you ever hear about in the mainstream is US punk rock boy bands, and you’d be forgiven for thinking that was it. You’d be forgiven for thinking that you had to have a body full of ‘hardcore’ tattoos, a ‘bad attitude’ and a clutch of radio friendly sing a long bounce filled pop songs to acquire any kind of fan base in this world. You would be wrong, however.
Now, I know that we here at Punktastic get our fair share of complaints about us simply covering pop punk from across the shore, and ignoring home grown talent, but that is simply not true, and our detractors are very selective on what they pick up from this site. So here’s one for the detractors. Imbalance. They’re certainly not pretty boys fresh from high school, and they haven’t walked into a recording contract with Household Name Records simply because they have high cheekbones and falsetto vocals. Oh no, these guys have traversed the UK toilet circuit like professionals and this is the fruit of their labour. If you find a low budget UK punk compilation, you’re likely to find these guys belting out their hardcore inspired punk rock somewhere on there. This is how it should be.
While unfortunately, the guitars sometimes sound like they’ve been recorded on a Phillips radio cassette recorder, and the vocals are just the wrong side of inaudible, ‘Spouting Rhetoric’ is an album full of charm, passion and most of all, talent. Bringing to mind H20 when they were actually a competent hardcore band, with big huge chunks of Hot Water Music and Ensign, as well as Consumed and Goober Patrol, they’re nothing groundbreaking. The title track sets us off at a stupendous pace, and doesn’t really let up for the entire 3 minutes. It starts off as it means to go on, with furious drumming, fuzz box guitars and a socially conscious lyrical stance.
You have all the colours of the hardcore punk spectrum right here on ‘Spouting Rhetoric’. We have the F-Minus-esque ‘blink and you’ll miss them’ minute and a half punk explosions like ‘Agitate The Agitator’ and ‘Crave Social Acceptance’, as well as the metallic sounding ‘Message In A Bottle’, the ‘brooding opening leading to full on hardcore onslaught’ of ‘The Money Trap’ and ‘Mutual Respect’ and the almost funky bass line good old fashioned garage punk anthems like ‘Cog In The Machine.
While ‘Spouting Rhetoric’ is a seriously enjoyable, yet still edgy and corrosive punk record, it fails to grab me as I would have hoped. The tracks are curiously similar to each other, and almost seem to be written to a formula. The whole record tends to melt into one long, hardcore onslaught, which is both a good thing, and a bad. While it has it’s own identity and appears to have captured a time in the bands careers, there are no really killer tracks. Luckily, it appears to be free of filler as well, retaining a consistent level of quality throughout.
So on the plus side, Imbalance have produced a high-quality, solid little record that is enjoyable from beginning to end and is clearly the work of experienced scenesters with something to say. On the flip side, however, it fails to sink its hooks deep enough into the listener, and just comes up short of a truly memorable record. Certainly one for the collection, but nothing particularly life changing.
Ross
