What's the deal with the rabbits? The CD and sleeve of this album are each adorned with some sort evil/deformed/omniscient rabbits. I have no idea what that's supposed to signify, maybe the band just likes really bad movies. That aside, that weird cover art did its job, as it got me interested in what this stuff actually sounded like.

As it turns out, The Killing Gift plays groove oriented post-hardcore with some pop sensibilities. Not much really stuck out about this band, aside from the singing. The female vocals are extremely well done, but they're really the only standout quality that The Killing Gift has to offer on their debut. That's not to say that this is a bad album, it's just really unremarkable. These songs are well played, but they aren't all that interesting. I've heard a lot of this stuff before, and I've heard it done better. Retracing the steps that others have taken doesn't lead to the immediate writing off of a band for me, but if you're going to do this, you need to be able to hold the listeners attention. However, the band does show flashes of what it can do with the track "Where's The Goot" which kicks of with really catchy riff, followed by the most memorable song on the entire album. This track seems to burst at the seams with energy, if they could harness this same approach on a full album, they could really have something.

All in all, this band shows quite a bit of talent on this release, but they simply don't do enough with it to warrant repeat listens, if they were to build on the foundation they've laid down with this, they could probably be huge, but that remains to be seen.

My Favorite Track: Where's The Goot

Smoke That Christmas Tree MP3.