There are ten-a-penny Funeral For A Friend/Silverstein/Thrice clones out there. But not very many of them are as good as To Catch A Thief. From the opening chords of ‘This Is A Ghost’ you’d expect some kind of gutteral, ungodly scream to collide with the aggressive riffs, but throughout the three tracks there’s not one single yelp. And boy does it makes this band stand out. While heavily Americanized, Ali Lane’s vocals are spot on, a kind of cross between Further Seems Forever‘s Jason Gleason and Matt Davies from Funeral For A Friend.
There are choruses, some wicked melodies and some really well constructed songs. The opening track is great, ‘Hit The Lights‘ hits high spots with a strong chorus and things get better with the soaring ‘Butterfly’. The guitar work stands out for not following standard chord progressions and while it would be difficult to praise the band for being original, they stick to a formula that’s so often messed up and they do it really, really well. 2008 could be a very good year…