View The Review
4 out of 10
From reading their press release, it seems that The State Versus are on the up. With appearances alongside Thursday and Taking Back Sunday at 2006's Taste of Chaos tour and winning the Australian state final of Battle of the Bands, I was expecting to be very impressed by this EP.
The press release also tells me that The State Versus are "for fans of Motion City Soundtrack and The Killers." and after a listen, I'm fairly bemused as to where these points of comparison have come from.
Opening track "First Place" in un-inspiring, basic and fairly tuneless - anything but the energy-fuelled pop-synth goodness that Motion City Soundtrack could produce in their sleep. Second track "Mystery" follows suit, to the point that I barely noticed that the next track had even started playing. "Pity The Pretty Prey" has moments of intrigue, but it's more mediocre teenage garage-rock than anything else.
The whole EP seems to lack definition and there's no depth to the music that they're offering up here. None of the 5 tracks seem to have any real substance - the vocals often strain to meet the pitch required by the underlying melodies and they seem to try and take each track in a hundred-and-one different directions, but don't seem to be able to decide on one and as a result, each track seems to be a bit of a mish-mash of sounds - to the extent that "Pity The Pretty Prey" has such an abrupt ending, that it was the only real thing that caught my attention.
It's clear that this band could do very well if they found a preferred style or styles and stick to them, but in this instance, variety really isn't the spice of life; which is a shame, as "Context" has moments of real brilliance - it's just a shame that these Adelaide boys can't pull it off for a whole track.
Listen: www.myspace.com/thestateversus
Tracklist:
1. First Place
2. Mystery
3. Pity The Pretty Prey
4. Context
5. Soul Archaeology
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