Camber - Wake Up and Be Happy

  by Benjamin Howarth

published: 8 / 5 / 2002

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Review

Camber are a band that have gradually built up a reputation as one of the hottest bands on the emo scene, but as yet they are not considered in the same league as some of the scene’s bigger groups. Unfortunately, I doubt that this album will change that, but it seems that it will succeed in reaffirming their position as one of the best bands on the scene. It is held back by the fact that the band don’t sound like natural songwriters or lyricists, and that their music can be quite awkward. But whilst sometimes the music is far from memorable this can also be seen as the band's real strength, since they are never one dimensional and the album is varied in its pace and tone. Camber are the sort of band that won’t be easy to love but repeated listens reveal that their music is effective. Perhaps the only thing that holds back the band is that they do not feature any single musician that makes you sit up and listen hard. Although having said that, they are all competent, and though each individual part is often simple the music as a whole is developed. The album’s strength is the way it moves in focus and style, from moments of acoustic based beauty to raw aggressive music. It is difficult to categorise the music. It is essentially emo, but as they throw in pianos, and harmonies along with the noise it is clear that they have a more adventurous approach than many within the current scene. With this, their third album, Camber are striving to be more like Fugazi, Elliott or the Appleseed Cast, bands that took emo as a template and then worked their own personalities around it. Camber are not naturally the most exciting of groups but, somehow, with an abundance of intelligent ideas and a good deal of ambition they have made music that is capable of standing up with some of the leading lights of the emo scene.

Track Listing:-

1 Devil You Know
2 Short Sleeve
3 West Village Idiot
4 Wake Up and Be Happy
5 Darling Together
6 Expat
7 Make Yourself Comfortable
8 Lenny
9 Plissken
10 A Trick I Learned In The Army
11 What Do You Want This To Be