A nice little seven song ep of mid-tempo and introspective punk rock for us dads in our late thirties. These guys seem to have been around for some time but are new acquintance for me. And a pleasant one too, when I want to listen to hardcore with some thought behind it but that isn’t full-blast in-your-face aggression.
Don’t get me wrong, this is hardcore. But it’s a hardcore band that isn’t afraid to slow things down and introduce some truly irresistible melody and hooks in their songs. You’ll get these songs stuck in your head, that’s for sure.
There is also something unmistakably East Coast and NYHC about Too Many Voices. It sounds like it only could have come from those parts. It’s not full of bouncy melodies or sun but the choruses resonate yearning and hope more than anything. It’s the kind of melodies that seem more likely to grow in the head of someone driving through a blizzard to some crappy factory job, however torturous that comparison may appear to those reading this.
Plenty of comparisons have been doing the rounds about this record, to which I have nothing to add. And to try to pick a favourite song on a short seven song EP seems a bit churlish, so I’ll just say that the opener Can’t stop this feeling sets the tone nicely and that there is a cool cover of Dischord band 3’s "Swann Street" which is damn cool. It actually sounds better than the original in my book.
The album actually came out at the end of 2018 but was reissued by Division Street Records this year. If you haven’t heard it by now and long for some hardcore with pathos and heart than you can do worse than catching a bit of Catch Me if You Can.
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