Sometimes you have to be cruel to be kind. As a young band, the only way to improve is to sometimes give a CD to a third party and listen to what they have to say to improve. When I was in a band, back in the day, I thought we sounded the dogs bollocks. Needless to say, looking back we were quite probably the worst band that ever existed. But still, it was a fun experience, even if we were shit. September Fall really need to listen to outside opinions – after all, one trip to their myspace page will see a myriad of friends declaring the Huddersfield lads as the best thing since sliced bread. Word to the wise – this is pretty bad.
The band themselves, musically, are pretty average. They can play okay, the riffs are basic and the drum patterns borrowed, but there’s nothing especially wrong with them – it’s just the vocals make me shudder. They’re absolutely awful. Now I know these are young kids, but it sounds like his voice is in the middle of breaking, so you get horrific switches from high to low in the same line. The lyrics are typical grade E GCSE English too, often sounding forced and tired. Mixed with the appalling vocals, it really doesn’t come across as an appealing mix.
As a four track demo, September Fall (who incidentally sound like ‘Cheshire Cat’-era Blink in everything from poor Tom DeLonge rip-off vocals to poor guitar lead riffs) will possibly get a few more gigs on the back of it. But in truth this is pretty crap – it’s not of a high standard and for the supposed ‘minor label interest’ the band claim to have, I’d suggest they dispel any notions of fame and fortune and crack the basics first. Get back to practising, get a singer that can hit the notes (or sing in range) and in six months time you’ll be where you need to be at to start climbing up the ladder. Until then, you can listen to the biased advice of friends all you like, but you won’t get very far…
www.myspace.com/septemberfalluk
Paul