Falling at the Last Hurdle - 2/5
It takes true punk rock artists to be as good in the studio as punk is live, yet keyboard wielding five piece The Duel take it a bit further with their album ‘Soundtrack to the End of the World’. Combining elements of powerful female vocals to booming keyboard riffs and an obvious Ramones influence, this is a band looking to take things one step further, but at the end of the day they don’t get as far as they possibly wanted to go…
According to my iTunes, ‘Soundtrack to the End of the World’ is 42 minutes long, telling the life story of Zak Splash whilst pulling a song story as easily as Rush could. The second track ‘Intro’ is a musical solely based around power chords and a rather annoying keyboard section by Thanos Oscar Pap before heading onto the powerful ‘Invincible’, with Tara Rez’s fantastic vocals and a rhythm section that sounds like The Ramones. ‘Less Everyday’ sounds like a disjoint version of Pink Floyd’s ‘The Wall’ at first before it emerges as a more Patti Smith influenced track ‘Fake Like You’ that sounds like what would happen if you told The Buzzcocks to write a ballad. ‘Splash on You’ also comes back as a ballad that’s probably written for Patti Smith, just a little bit more disastrous.
Overall, the album seems to be crazy. It’s a mad array of influences crafted into one band that try to use it to their full potential, yet The Duel only seem to fall right at the last hurdle.
http://www.facebook.com/thedueluk
According to my iTunes, ‘Soundtrack to the End of the World’ is 42 minutes long, telling the life story of Zak Splash whilst pulling a song story as easily as Rush could. The second track ‘Intro’ is a musical solely based around power chords and a rather annoying keyboard section by Thanos Oscar Pap before heading onto the powerful ‘Invincible’, with Tara Rez’s fantastic vocals and a rhythm section that sounds like The Ramones. ‘Less Everyday’ sounds like a disjoint version of Pink Floyd’s ‘The Wall’ at first before it emerges as a more Patti Smith influenced track ‘Fake Like You’ that sounds like what would happen if you told The Buzzcocks to write a ballad. ‘Splash on You’ also comes back as a ballad that’s probably written for Patti Smith, just a little bit more disastrous.
Overall, the album seems to be crazy. It’s a mad array of influences crafted into one band that try to use it to their full potential, yet The Duel only seem to fall right at the last hurdle.
http://www.facebook.com/thedueluk