The last time I reviewed Despondent I stated they were on the verge of something splendid. I remember them being heavily influenced by the Fat Wreck/Epitaph sound of the mid-1990s and being a refreshing change. But since that EP landed on my doormat, I feel the band have lost their way a little bit. ‘Fake’ is six similar sounding songs dressed up with better production, courtesy of Andy Ellis who worked on the early My Awesome Compilation material. This EP, while fast, furious and has every box ticked on the skate punk checklist, just fails to hit the spot enough for me. At times it’s aggressive and melodic, but on the whole it doesn’t offer anything their last record produced – and the lack of improvement tends to suggest these guys are a one trick pony.
‘Clown’ and ’14 Straights’ are fast, pedal-to-the-metal punk songs with a large dose of melody, but all the songs here follow the same formula. Each track has a standard guitar riff and would surely have been better suited to an outrageous guitar solo or two just to throw something new into the mix. Reuben Vaughan sounds a little like Billie-Joe Armstrong and he plays off the snot-nosed punk sound to carry the band, but there’s just a lack of inventive ideas to make this stand out. I feel this band have the talent to produce much better than this – I had high hopes based on their last record, but this is too predictable and simply re-hashes a 10-year-old sound without doing too much new.
www.despondentrock.tk
Rectum Records
Paul