Posted on: February 3, 2011 Posted by: James McQuiston Comments: 0

Nu-metal ties itself in with the more-hardcore emo and a myriad of different genres to provide QuarterLife Crisis with their motivation. With an ear for melody and a mind for the greatest possible impact, QLC places “What You Will” with its catchy choruses as the first track, and places the Strike Anywhere/A Wilhelm Scream-like track with fierce vocals and tribal drums, right after. Morphing in quickly with the end of “What You Will” is the still-strong but verging on cliché (in the terms of the stanzas guitars) track, “Thanks4Nothing”. Each track on “Forget The Time” ends much too quickly, with the rapid shifts in general sound and incredible talent demonstrated by the members just making everything ending before it really started. The sound on “Forget The Time” is impressive, and really shows the cohesion that QuarterLife as a band has gained since their first days together in 2001. Each instrument is masterfully played and deserves its own attention, but there are times during “Forget The Time” where the playing of a certain instrument is just head and shoulders beyond what is currently going on around them.

The double-bass pedals on “Thanks4Nothing”, the intricate show-stopping nature of the bass on “Example”, Charlie and Bill’s vocals on the entire track are the simplest reasons that I could ever quote as why “Forget The Time” is a solid EP. Each of the four tracks are catchy as hell works that span genres easily, and are recorded in such a way that I wouldn’t be amazed if I found them on Fat Wreck or Fastmusic in the next decade. To put this in terms that only Buffalo-area kids that were into their punk/hardcore scene in 1997-1998, QuarterLife Crisis is the new Pissants. The Pissants were a straight-forward harder punk/hardcore band whose “Sinking Ship” is in the same spirit as “Moving On”.

Anthemic music is always a welcome change from the over-produced snoozefests that Clearchannel loves to plaster all over its radio, and QuarterLife Crisis has a perfect average, with four anthemic, foot-stomping tracks out of four on the disc. With the replay value of this disc at one of the highest I’ve ever seen, just for this review I’ve been able to spin through the disc a total of four times and still have not gotten tired of the contents of this disc. Regardless of whether a founding member has left (as Santos had after the release of this CD), I feel as if QuarterLife Crisis can fight on and get the accolades that they deserve as purveyors of such solid music.

Top Track: Example

Rating: 9.0/10

QuarterLife Crisis – Forget The Time / 4 Tracks / 2004 Self-Released / http://www.thanks4nothing.com / [email protected] / Reviewed 04 August 2004

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