I was really impressed with the mission statement on this comp. It's long, so I don't want to bore you by posting the entire message, but I'll highlight it for you. "Brandon and I have a dream that one day music will be music, bands will be bands, and and nothing else will exist in between. That boundaries and labels will be broken, as well as hatred and manipulation." After reading that, I was very interested in seeing what had to be offered. There are some real hits on this album, as well as misses.
First off, the opening track by Rescue really blew me away. It's a delightful 3/4 romp with a lot of differentiation between the different instruments. Hard to place a comparison.
Another great track is "Diffuser" by The Ghost. It's a really well written hardcore/post-hardcore jam that displays a great knowledge of melody.
Dearest Fae impressed me with a hardcore/grind-core jam reminiscent of The Locust mixed with Poison the Well. I really enjoyed it. It was nice to hear the grindy moments mixed in with classic hardcore breakdowns.
Members of the Yellow Press provide a very catchy guitar based indie/post-hardcore song "Blink and Breath." The guitars never use distortion on this song, but it still rocks pretty hard.
Next on the list of hits is The Evaluation with "One thing John Grisham and Wal-Mart Have In Common." it's a very relaxed tempo, but with some awesome screams and guitar harmonies.
There are also a fair share of misses. Some that stand out are Little Joe Gould (nka Murder By Death). You can tell it's a very early track by them because it's not good. It's just airy and without substance.
I also don't much care for the Tubring song either. It sounds like bad electronica mixed with hardcore, and doesn't suit my fancy.
Goodnight Sweetheart is my final gripe about the album. It's just a bad acoustic song with a full band and female vocals. I just didn't like anything about it.
There are a bunch more songs on the album that are really good in their own way. Nothing really blew me out of the water, but I liked most of the rest of them and definitely think that the good outweighs the bad on this CD. Go out and grab it if you can, it's well worth the cash.