With this, album number four, Engine Down have all but become a reference point in their genre of DC-style post-hardcore. They’re now no longer a “baby band” with similarities to Frodus and Burning Airlines: they are the standard bearers whose name gets tossed around by the generation below. Deservingly so, too, since Engine Down in 2004 sounds more like Engine Down and nothing else than ever. Having found their groove with third record Demure, the band have learned to center songs around guitarist/vocalist Keeley Davis’ drifting tenor, supporting it with sexy/hypnotic/pulsing stop-and-go rhythms and Mediterranean minor chord progressions. The somber nature of the compositions ebb and flow with irresistible motion, enveloping everything the band produces in a veil of mourning.

Opener “Rogue,” “And Done,” “Cover,” and “101” are the most immediate of the bunch, not quite as infectious as Demure’s highlights but still thick obelisks of sorrow and might. Perhaps bleaker than what the Taking Back Sunday crowd is used to, but far, far more interesting and flavorful than most bands working this circuit. Recommended.
www.enginedown.com
www.lookoutrecords.com

Tim Den

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 Past Constructive Criticism

Jeremy Harris posted the following Constructive Criticism: I love Engine Down. However, I think comparing them to Taking Back Sunday is a bit disrespectful. They have so much more energy and rock out much harder than TBS. Jerm