Over-analysed biographies and press releases make me laugh. OK, it’s vital that any publicist ‘sells’ their band, or at least makes them interesting, but telling naughty lies will result in a massive dose of egg on face. Take Philadelphia’s Overise, for example, a quartet who have turned heads in the US by appearing on the recent Drive Thru compilation and creating a bit of a buzz on the the internet with aggressive publicity and promotion. Their biography makes them sound like the second coming. Seriously. Read this:
“The sound of Overise is led by their unique, alternative rock music and profound, emotional vocals that when blended together by the precision of their musicianship, form an incomparable sound that is one of a kind. With a live show that is full of intense energy and passion, Overise just gives you that feeling inside that they are something special. The band pays an incredible attention to detail and their sound is extremely carried out by first-rate precision from the instrumentation to the vocals. They don’t leave any stone unturned and their newest recordings have a close to perfect resonance to them.”
What they fail to say is that these guys are no more than a sappy Starting Line-lite clone (yup, they’re even lighter than TSL), who write songs so poppy they make McFly look and sound like Napalm Death. ‘Profound’? Only if you consider songs about breaking up with your girlfriend to be new and inspiring. ‘Unique’? Haha, don’t make me laugh – this sound has been copied and ripped by thousands upon thousands of bands over the years. A ‘close to perfect resonance’? You mean over-produced twaddle more like.
If you like the Drive Thru ‘sound’ from five years ago, when The Starting Line were covering early 80s pop songs and New Found Glory were still writing their self-titled record, then this may interest you for about twenty minutes. But long term, this is just whiney, sappy rubbish – devoid of any new ideas or catchy melodies and certainly low on the originality front. I probably wouldn’t have been so scathing had the biography not been quite so absurd, but it needed showing up. I like catchy pop-punk – always have done – but this is so bad it hurts my ears. In a word, rubbish.
www.purevolume.com/overise
Paul