Johnny Craig has a set of pipes on him. I’d heard a lot about Emarosa but never heard them and following their recent UK jaunt the amount of people I had talk to me about them jumped up tenfold. They didn’t creep up on my radar, more viciously mugged me from behind. That said, 2008’s ‘Relativity’ is not the perfect album people had led me to believe. It’s a really interesting listen, steeped in layers of atmospheric guitars and clever song structures, but it’s really only separated from a lot of other bands by Mr Craig’s vocals. He has that same impact Anthony Green does, even though the two don’t sound alike.
‘Her Advice Cost Us A Life’ is a really good tune and what I like about Emarosa is their ability to use the vocals as the main instrument. While the guitars twist and turn in knots, the vocals just lead the song off into awesome directions, flicking between the aggressive and the more gentle parts so easily. Throughout this album the vocals remain melodic, even if there aren’t too many obvious choruses. It’s not a generic album – it’s clever and intricate in places too.
‘Pretend. Release. The Close’ and ‘Just Another Marionette’ are two further songs worth listening to, while Johnny Craig’s own mother appears for a guest spot on ‘Even Bad Men Love Their Mothers’. While the band are better than most in the genre, I did feel it was perhaps two songs too long and would have been better with a snip off here and there. Not major surgery – far from it – but just a little edit in places to streamline it. That said, it’s a minor complaint. Emarosa are clearly a talented band on the right lines and I think the next record could well set them apart from pretty much everyone else in their class.