ninehertz

Sunshine Republic are in no hurry to get anywhere fast and that's fine with me... starting from a very quiet dynamic build up (almost too quiet due to a lack of mastering) the track slowly builds into a huge wave of noise with vocals gruffly mixing into the distorted guitars. Sunshine Republic specialise in colouring the whole spectrum with sound and filling highs and lows with absorbing riffs. The detail in the builds with electronic sounds is beautiful... with better recording and mastering this band will sound phenomenal... as they do constantly live.

Flatlands on the other hand have a different angle with their two songs (Sunshine's is a very long fifteen minute or so offering). They are a heavier proposition of band hitting you straight away with riffage that is quiet delectable and some superb screaming from singer Mike, the immense amounts of reverb on the voice making him sound stunningly disturbed! The backing vocals provided by the bass player Simon provide a nice more melodic texture against the harsh-as-fuck screams. The structuring of each of the songs here is superb and the sound is more mature than their year existence, with crushing bass lines and pounding drums augmented by dynamic guitar lines and crushingly brilliant screams. These guys are new contenders to the crown. In a world where too many bands copy more established acts, Flatlands take their rural monotony of life and provide it with thrilling dynamic music.

I suggest you buy this 12" as a better debut release will be hard to find this year.