Without Thought - Get Down and Give Me Infinity

  by Kelly Smith

published: 5 / 10 / 2008

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I really like screamo music. I don’t care if it’s cool, or if you all think screamo is for wimps. I think on the whole that most of it is pretty ace. Which is why I was surprised that my first thought when I started to listen to this was “Jesus. That guy’s gonna hurt his throat” closely followed by “this would be great with less screaming”. Plus, and this is a side note, but important to the rest of the review, it was really annoying that the track listing was only printed on the actual CD and not the cover, so if I’ve become mixed up with some track titles here it’s only because I had to stop it playing each time I was writing something, remember which song I was talking about, eject the CD, read the title, resume playing CD, and repeat. Once the first 30 seconds of opening track ‘Standing On The Edge’ had passed though, it was like a different band emerged. The melodies are tight, and the screams of vocalist Jim Newbury sound a lot better after the initial shock. Some of the riffs verge on pop-punk rather than the rock/punk/metal as proclaimed, but it doesn’t result in a softer sound – the vocals are still brutal, the overall sound aggressive, but in a good way. After this, the album seems to get into its stride with minimal effort. ‘Open Your Eyes’ and ‘Self-Preservation’ are at their most appealing during the sing-a-long choruses, where everything seems to come together for them musically. ‘Self-Preservation’ especially is really strong, clashing just the right intensity of instruments with just the right amount of vocal. Towards the end of the album, some of the songs become a bit samey, but the highlight of each is when Newbury uses his talent and actually sings, which gives the band more depth than they’re crediting themselves with. Less screaming, more singing, and Without Thought could be a brilliant band. Without Thought are instrumentally very good in places, but unfortunately come across as thinking they are an even better band. The claim that they’re “bursting with truly innovative song writing” is possibly over-egging the pudding somewhat. Yeah, they’re good, even really good, but it’s nothing I haven’t heard before, in a hundred variations. Experimentally, they’re a few years too late to claim the “truly innovative” title as their own, but that’s not an excuse to overlook them. Potentially awesome, with a tiny bit of fine-tuning.

Track Listing:-

1 Standing On The Edge
2 With Any Arms
3 Recovery (Album Version)
4 Open Your Eyes
5 Self Preservation
6 The Krunch
7 Regretamine
8 Discipline
9 Perpetuity
10 Who Killed Laura Palmer?
11 In Your Hands
12 There's Knowing It... and Then There's Feeling It.

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