Meat Wave – Brother EP
While we wait impatiently for the new LP from Chicago’s Meat Wave (slated for later this year) we can content ourselves with the three-piece’s solid Brother EP, which is being released on the relatively new Brace Yourself imprint.
Riding what’s left of the recent grunge revival, it’s a sub-20 minute blast of mid-fi punk and emo that owes its vocal to Dave Grohl and its slashing guitar tension to Dylan Baldi’s magpie thievery of the classics. There’s a neat demo-quality cover of Wipers‘ ‘Mystery’ too, which should complete all you need to know about influences. Here, the punchy title-track and “It’s Not Alright” originate from the band’s 2012 debut cassette, the rest of the seven-track running-order made up of new material.
Breaking the mould, the outlying “Sham King” is heavy, yet people-friendly, housing a near-metal crunch bleached round the edges with raw emotion. The stand-out “Sunlight”, on the other hand, has a retro alt-rock feel to it, kinda like The Smashing Pumpkins rubbing up against snotty Sonic Youth-style art-rock textures. Of course benefit of the doubt is always given to newer bands so while the remaining two new tracks are, in fairness, less memorable there are plenty enough hooks on Brother to keep Meat Wave firmly snagged on your radar.
Best tracks: “Sunlight”
~The Brother EP is released 19th January 2015 on Brace Yourself Records.~