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Silence The City - Holdfast EP review

12 Dec 2012 // A review by Alistar3000

Silence the City claim to be high-energy rock and their debut EP, Holdfast, certainly sets out to live up to their lofty claims, and for the most part does a good job of it.

The seven track EP starts out with an intro that in no way represents their music, and misled me at first into thinking that I was about to listen to some sort of poppy retro electronic dance outfit; there was a hint of Kids of 88, mixed with something I can only describe as Baywatch-esque.

But by track two this Auckland quartet is back on track and delivers up five more catchy rock tunes. Their sound draws heavily on ‘90s pop punk, which at times can come across a little tired. At the same time I have great memories of listening to Sommerset, Kitsch, Brubeck and other exponents of that catchy, energetic punky sound during the mid- 90's, so the EP turned into something of a nostalgia trip at times.

Not that there’s anything wrong with that sound, and the band sure know how to inject it with new life, it’d just be nice to see them use it as more of a reference and less a template sometimes. Holdfast is a fun little EP and shows the band’s strengths well, but it’d be nice to see them build on it for their next release.

 

Releases

Resilience
Year: 2017
Type: Album
Holdfast
Year: 2012
Type: EP

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