Crime in Stereo - Crime in Stereo is Dead

  by Daniel Cressey

published: 8 / 1 / 2008

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Review

Although it apparently emerges from a post-tour period that saw the band nearly split, you wouldn’t know it from 'Crime in Stereo Is Dead'. This album is as tight could be expected from this US hardcore group. Favouring melodies over out and out noise also does them some favours, allowing vocalist Kristian Halbert to show he is capable of more than the usual hardcore screaming staples. The remainder of the band also pull their weight, producing instrumentation that gets about as close to subtle as this sort of music ever does. At several points the track are actually involving and justify the band’s decision to stay together and work on this release. ‘Unfortunate Tourists’ for instance carries more ambition than many songs that follow the same “quiet section / loud section” plan. Immediately following it, ‘Nixon’ captures precisely the energy and anger of its tale of youth going a bit wild. In the main Crime in Stereo do seem more ambitious than peers currently ploughing similar furrows. Overall though '…Is Dead' though is never as thrilling as hardcore can be, and never as catchy as more melodic punk should be. In pitching their tent somewhere between these camps Crime in Stereo end have produced an album that is interesting, enjoyable, but never totally coherent or consistently compelling.

Track Listing:-

1 XXXX (The First 1,000 Years Of Solitude)
2 Third Atlantic
3 ...But You Are Vast
4 Animal Pharm
5 Small Skeletal
6 Unfortunate Tourists
7 Nixon
8 Vicious Teeth
9 Almost Ghostless / Above The Gathering Oceans
10 Orbiter
11 Choker