I haven’t heard the bands first CD but this is apparently a new direction for the band seeing them take on a more mature sound laden with smashed guitars. Pitch Black are a San Francisco Bay Area Punk band, and there is definitely a hint of the AFI sound of old in their music – particularly in songs such as ‘The Screaming Song’ where vocalist Kevin Cross replicates Davey Havok’s vocal style down to a tee.
This album really isn’t going to change your life, or in fact get you in to this kind of thing if you’re not already a fan. In all fairness and in the albums defence – this isn’t at all a dull record; it’s just not really anything new or revolutionary. There are areas of great promise on this CD, like the albums opener ‘Tonopak’ or the aforementioned ‘The Screaming Song,’ but for the most part this album is in my opinion just a bit too average. The band are quite good at what they do and are a fairly credible Punk band, but the thing is there are already a million and one bands out there to choose from and in this sea of bands – Pitch Black will probably drift by unnoticed.
I’ll probably try and check out the bands debut at some stage to see how the band got to this stage as I’m interested to see what they progressed to this from, but their new sound just isn’t anything special. The lyrics have some great depth, and this is most certainly a redeeming feature of what is otherwise a fairly average record but then again this lyrical depth isn’t enough to make them anything particularly special.
Rating:
UK based film graduate with a huge passion for music, sports and video games.
