Having stumbled across The Graduate‘s EP “The Horror Show” a few months ago, and thoroughly enjoyed it, I tried contacting the band to arrange getting a few copies to distro in the UK and they ignored every message I sent them and their label. Therefore it came as a bit of a surprise to me when I was sent their debut album to review and the press release tells me that the Springfield based band have a “no bullshit attitude”. Luckily as a reviewer I don’t hold that same characteristic otherwise I’d be really tempted to cast aside my level headed opinions of “Anhedonia” and tear apart these twelve songs. Instead I’ll give you my honest opinion…this album is pretty impressive.
The Graduate offer melodic emo-core in the vein of Just Surrender, Moneen and Circa Survive and therefore aren’t an entirely different prospect for listeners – but at the same time they do bring with it a fairly mature approach. Instead of crashing through every track they often take a moment to build the atmosphere and this means tracks like “I survived” hold a touch more poignancy. Opening track “Sit and sink” doesn’t grab you immediately though and this might originally put people off the record – but with patience comes reward and “Anhedonia” more than makes up by hitting hard in several places. This is evidence on third track “Bet It All” as well as a re-recorded version of EP track “Justified”. Vocally the band are appeasing yet nothing too dramatic and at times I am left wanting a bit more to grab hold of and sing a long too. That’s my only real criticism of this record – it’s atmospheric moments more than outweigh its hooks and therefore don’t buy this release expecting it to be packed full of energy and excitement. It’s a slow burner that aims to be a touch more epic and given time it’s manages to achieve that – something which you’ll appreciate when it finally clicks with you.
While The Graduate aren’t too speedy with their correspondence, their debut album is a very good effort and with tours planned with Permament Me and a spot on this years Warped Tour I’d expect to hear a lot more from them. Just for the record…there are no mentions of Anne Bancroft, Dustin Hoffman or Simon and Garfunkle on this cd.
Tom