The initial suggestions of United Nations falling under the grindcore, powerviolence, and traditional screamo umbrellas may have created unrealistic expectations for some music lovers. However, one can't really fault the band members of United Nations for attempting to distance themselves from the stereotypes of their main projects with these descriptions of what to expect from the band. To many screamo is still that MTV2 pop-glazed-punk that bands like Taking Back Sunday and The Used put on plastic. Unfortunately, in an effort to distinguish themselves the members of United Nations might have taken things a tad too far. So yes, this is not a grindcore or powerviolence project in the classic sense per se, but the influence from bands of those genres can be heard. Plus it is also not going to be heard on the radio, except for that on the left end of the dial.
United Nations opens the album with "The Spinning Heart of the Yo-Yo Lobby," a sub-minute blast of scorching guitars and pummeling drums while dual-vocals trade off screams and the occasional vocal melody, rather in line with the early screamo outfits that they claim inspiration from. This is the style used throughout the album, obviously with a modern approach and better production. This controlled chaos continues on tracks like "Resolution #9," "Model UN," and "Revolutions in Graphic Design."
Meanwhile "No Sympathy for a Sinking Ship" infuses a bit more melody into the structure. "Filmed in Frost" is a further escape from the intensity with an opening of acoustic guitars before combining double-bass drums and echoing post-rock inspired guitars and various guitar gadgetry.
On the lyrical front, from what I can decipher, subject matters cover various topics. Occasionally they touch of political issues, the record industry, and at other times they appear to be poetic. One that is of note is "The Shape of Punk that Never Came" as it takes aim at Refused and the manifesto set forth on The Shape of Punk to Come and, in the eyes of the individual who penned the lyrics, was undelivered:
Dennis, are you listening? Is there something I am missing? Where is the passion? Was it just fiction? If that is the best that we can do I'd rather be dead.
Closing track "Say Goodbye to General Figment of the USS Imagination" is as caustic as the rest of the album at first, but circa the two-minute mark the guitars pull back to twinkling melodies and reveal the somber notes of a saxophone. This combination is quite unexpected but in all honestly this is easily my favorite moment of the entire album; I wish it had lasted for a good twenty or thirty minutes in a free-jazz adventure
now that would have been perfect.
United Nations is a solid debut. However, suggestions that all the recordings that this project will ever release have already been recorded and soon be released (Never Mind the Bombings, Here's Your Six Figures 7" via Deathwish is already planned and another LP is supposedly rumored) means this short-lived project will soon become nothing more than memory to most.
