A Thousand Suns - Destroy Create

by Paul Raven

published: 8 / 12 / 2007

Label: Thousand Suns
Format: CDS

intro

Catchy and versatile rock from experimental and boldly alternative new Cardiff-based group A Thousand Suns

The word 'diversity' gets thrown around a lot in this industry, but I think A Thousand Suns have earned it. The 'Destroy Create' EP grabs tropes from a slew of guitar music styles and welds them together with the magic ingredient – catchy hooks. There's a definite Brit-rock flavour to these tunes, but there are also the flourishes of full-on metal, the bright melodic lines of emo, and the complex architecture of prog and math-rock. Inventive drum work provides the spine, fleshed out by stern guitar riffs that never quite do what you think they're going to do, suddenly evaporating into epic atmospherics for a few bars before crashing back into the crunch again, and some perfectly timed drops and stops keeping the listener from getting too complacent. The quality is a little uneven, however. The opening track, “March Of The Pigs”, seems to take the lion's share of quality (as well as lyrics that are slightly reminiscent of New Model Army, of all people), while “All I Wanted” is a serviceable song that never quite launches itself out of the generic. But taken as a whole, this is a pretty strong beginning for a band who've plainly decided to go their own way, and a welcome relief from indentikit haircut hardcore.