I must admit, I’m not the hugest follower of Behind Crimson Eyes, but I guess when you listen to something fresh, you’re expecting to be blown away. So it was a bit of a disappointment to hear Shakedown, their latest single. It was ineffectual to say the least. Unfortunately, there message of corporate rebellion has been done a little too much before, especially in their genre of music. I mean, if you’re going to try and relay these kinds of ideals in songs, at least make it original. Raise your hand (or your fist, for all you punk rockers out there), if you’ve heard something along these lines before:
We’ll start a revolution and bring them to their knees. Or, No fascist lies. Yep, me too.
I’m all for a song that gets my blood pumping the only way ‘revolution’ can, but this one merely got me tapping my toes (actually, I wouldn’t go that far, maybe just my big toe). I couldn’t bring myself to stand up and shout “Fight the power”.
I love Australian music and I would love to say more for these guys, but unfortunately with this single, I can’t. I will say this though, it is awesome to see bands such as Behind Crimson Eyes giving Aussie Punk/Screamo some recognition. Behind Crimson Eyes are making quite a name for themselves, and I won’t deny that they’ve got plenty of musical talent. There’s nothing worse than a screamo band that sing out of key. Screaming alone is far from talent and Josh from Behind Crimson Eyes certainly shows off his vocal talents as one of the band’s main assets.
What I can say for them is that they’re definitely capable of producing great stuff and pioneering this genre of music for Australia. They’re fan base is testament to that. All in all, I think this single will prove popular with fans and will slot in nicely with there album, A Revelation for Despair, yet what it lacks for me is that extra bit of oomph. The kind of sound that isn’t easily mistaken or compared to other songs like it. It definitely wasn’t a bad song, but I’ve heard many like it before.
