There was a time when Epitaph records could do no wrong. At the same time as Fat Wreck helped them rule the punk roost, their Punk-o-Rama compilations became the staple diet for any newbie – and the best way to come across your future new favourite band. Somewhere along the line the label has spread its wings and the label has diversified into hip-hop, synth-based pop punk and bands like Vanna. Clearly influenced by the likes of Norma Jean and Converge, this is a record that lives and dies by its riffs. It’s an aggressive beast of a record, helped in part by Matt Bayles’ wicked production, but strip away the guitar licks and there’s a lot of ‘heard-it-all-befores’ here.
There are many positive parts to ‘Curses’. ‘The Alarm’ is a brutal beginning, while the singing during the half-way point of ‘Surgical Tools’ acts as a massive catharsis to the sheer brutality which starts and ends the track. But for all of the good points, there’s a bad one. Maybe bad is a strong word, but ‘Home’ and ‘Magnetic Knives’ just sound very generic and, shit hot fretwankery aside, I don’t believe Vanna would stand out from the pack much at all. When the band get it right, as they do on ‘The Things He Carried’, they get it very right. But there are too many occasions were this just sounds like more flavour of the month metal influenced hardcore. And that is not a good thing. I suspect the black-clad emos among us will lap this up, but I’m after a little more from this genre now, which is surely about to hit saturation point.