Sixty Stories – This is a female led indie rock outfit that really tends to be on the exciting part of the spectra, continually changing their sound, from being a dreamy indie outfit to something that would seemingly be more at home in the pages of Metal Edge than Punk Planet. Throughout it all, the strong guitars are the key reminders that this band is indeed the same as the one through the whole first part of the CD. Sixty Stories really has the ability, and really use this ability, to lull people into a sense of secrity and then completely blow their ears out of the water. If you want some sort of comparison, I would say that this band sounds like Rainer Maria and Christie Front Drive, but they really take their influences from bands like Bif Naked, Letters from Cleo, Elastica, and the like, using these influences to completely forge a catchy as all get out rock band. The aural oxymoron that is “Silence Song” is a tour de force that gpes through a woman that is all alone to a completely driving tempo that catches all listening and drags them where it wants. Sixty Stories is a band that one should really look out for in the next few years, as they literally are screaming to be recognized by the mainstream, as the level at which they play is so beyond another currently out on the market.
Rating : 8.3/10.Painted Thin – I have one thing to say about this band, and while I don’t know if they are completely fluent in English or not, I can still say that the lead singer has no clue on how to properly deliver a song in English. What I’m thinking is that his first language is not English, and the stresses he places on certain words and lines would make more sense in German rather than English. The band is defunct, so I’m not sure why exactly Smallman Records placed them on a split with a current band. The music that Painted Thin play are really top notch, but the thing that holds me back from being totally sold on the band is the really poor delivery of the lyrics, which are of themselves good, being written a little bit abstractly, only adding to the poetry inherent on their side of the split. I’d like to actually hear a song of theirs done, if my conclusions are correct, in their native German. The great musicianship of this band would be able to shine, and by placing the lyrics in a different context, the quality of the split itself would also increase. “Landmine”, the last song of the split and of the disc, is by far the strongest of Painted Thin, mixing together poppy-guitars with a decidedly indie style of lyrical content and delivery.
Rating : 6.1/10.
Total Rating : 7.1/10.
