Posted on: July 16, 2007 Posted by: James McQuiston Comments: 0

V/A – Deep Elm: Cover Your Tracks / 2007 Deep Elm / 12 Tracks / http://www.deepelm.com /

I guess I do not understand the real purpose of Deep Elm bands covering other Deep Elm songs. Obviously, it would not be hard to get copyright clearance from Cross My Heart, Last Days of April, Pop Unknown, and the like. However, I don’t see what the use is in doing these covers. Aside from the Deep Elm completists, few individuals will know what the originals sounded like. There is not much of ability here to compare the original to the cover, and to see the creative ability of the band. Rather, it just seems like the bands are doing another song. That’s not a big deal, but why not just have another compilation of their own tracks? The disc has some heavyweights here, whether it be Desert City Soundtrack, Clair De Lune, Fightstar, Slowride, or Settlefish, why not just let them do their own thing?

Anyways, “Cover Your Tracks” starts off with Desert City Soundtrack’s cover of “Marigold and Patchwork”, a track that was originally committed to disc by The Appleseed Cast. The full sound of Desert City Soundtrack is in rare form with this disc, with the wall of sound not providing an obstacle to listeners as much as an enveloping blanket of sound. As is the case with practically every Desert City Soundtrack song, the ability and clarity of the act is off of the scale; the earnest guitars provide the perfect counterpoint to the brash and pointed guitars on the track. Small Arms Dealer actually are surprisingly tight during their cover of the Cross My Heart song “Today I Discovered The World”.

The track resembles in a more than passing way the instrumentation of an At The Drive-In, all the way down to the angular breakdowns that are present on the track. The slower sound of Clair De Lune’s cover of the Benton Falls song “Angel on Hiatus” is different than what was present on the opening of the disc, but is good in the sense that it allows subsequent bands to try their hand at different approaches. Fightstar go at “The Days I Recall Being Wonderful” in a way that seems like a blend of AFI and Green Day; the song succeeds through very distinctive drum beats. “Cover Your Tracks” is a good idea for a compilation, but next time, perhaps Deep Elm can dig deep and allow some of their bigger bands to do covers of tracks that were influential to their overall sound.

Top Tracks: Fightstar / The Days I Recall Being Wonderful , Surrounded / Coming From The Cold

Rating: 7.1/10

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