Another day, another post-hardcore band. When will these kids learn? A genre that is becoming incredibly over-saturated, so much so that certain members of Punktastic won’t even look at a post-hardcore record anymore, let alone listen to one. The number of bands switching to this years craze genre, or starting bands to play it, seems to be astronomical and hardly a day goes by when the Punktastic office doesn’t receive another coaster. I mean post-hardcore cd. So, what sets Welsh boys Opium apart from all of the others? Well nothing to be honest, their promo cd is just more of the same pish.
After reading a review on punknews.org.uk where the band received a lowly one star I was dreading putting this four-tracker into the stereo. Fortunately it wasn’t as bad as I had imagined (if you think this is bad Jim I’ll show you some stuff that will give you nightmares…) but it’s certainly nothing special. When a band states its influences as those from the Long Island scene I start to cringe and these valley boys do have more than a passing resemblence to the likes of The Movielife. They actually remind me of a very poor man’s My Favourite Co-Pilot in places, but whereas MFCP do it brilliantly there’s nothing here to catch the eye or ear.
There’s not much wrong with the likes of ‘If you wanna dance…we’ll dance’ – there’s melody and the relevant bits are in the right places – but I’ve already heard all this before and it was much better then. ‘Ghost Like Smile’ reminds me of Senses Fail without the screaming and it’s possibly the best track here, but even then it does go on for too long. The MFCP influence comes across most in ‘Backward Glance’, but with the long guitar intro and the gap before the vocals kick in there’s a bit of a pattern emerging, resulting in the bland ‘Tears For Tia’.
Kudos for already playing 45 gigs this year but Opium have a hell of a long way to go before they make an indentation on the toilet circuit, let alone further. There’s nothing unique and they don’t really have their own sound either. Still, if you absolutely must listen to another UK post-hardcore band you could do a hell of a lot worse than Opium. Thing is, you could do a hell of a lot better too.
www.opiumonline.co.uk
Paul