If I’ve said it once, I’ve said it a million times – shouty, rubbish, generic post-hardcore is dead. I don’t mind bands that have choruses the size of Africa, and I certainly don’t mind bands that try and mix things up a little to breathe new life into a tired and depressed genre of music that, let’s face it, is flagging fast. It’s a rotting corpse of a genre that is only living by the skin of its teeth – yet bands seem to want to continue to sweep their fringes, spray on their jeans and sing and shout like there’s no tomorrow. Reading’s Twice Upon A Time, on the face of it, don’t look as though they’ll escape reviewers’ wrath. But scratch away at the surface and the five new songs on offer here aren’t all that bad.
True, there’s nothing massively groundbreaking here and the formula they adopt is tried and tested (the band’s bio lists Fall Out Boy, Thrice, Brand New, TBS, Underoath, TheBled, Alexisonfire, The Movielife, The Smiths and The Police as influences), but there’s enough skill and panache here to warrant a listen. The sing/scream thing isn’t overdone at all and the structures and choruses have hooks that are memorable – although not massive. I read a review that suggested TUAT (almost an unfortunate abbreviation…) have the ‘x’ factor which makes them stand out from the rest, and while I don’t entirely agree I do understand what they mean. Twice Upon A Time do what they do pretty well, possess plenty of talent and can write a song, but they need a bit of work if they intend to take things a step further.
www.myspace.com/twiceuponatime
Paul