Wednesday, February 06, 2013

Antpile - Black Smith - 2012

Antpile are a four piece screamo band from Georgia and Black Smith are a five piece from Florida. This split EP released by Passenger Seat Records is quite good even though it is a tad lopsided. Antpile play rather straight ahead screamo that owes quite a debt to more traditional hardcore, lots of little melodic guitar lines going every which way while the singer does his rough shout. While I quite enjoy a couple of these songs, Jeremia and  I Said being my favourites, most of them just kinda sit there, not kicking up the kind of noisy storm that I prefer with screamo.






Black Smith's side of the album improves things significantly. Black Smith play a brand of 90s emo that I can rarely get enough of when done well. On their facebook page they point to Jimmy Eat World, Mineral and Texas As The Reason as their influences. Almost all these songs are great and I don't even mind the somewhat obvious punk pop influences. The singer has a beautifully melodic voice that just tends towards sadness,the guitars reach for the stars with an epic sound and the backing vocals tie everything together with their gruffness. While I like the first side with Antpile, it's the second side with Black Smith that I keep coming back to.