Artist: Sep7ember
Title: Strange Ways Of Going Home
Genre: Punk / Hard-Pop
Release Date: 7th October 2011
Label: SPV
Album Review
SEP7EMBER formed in 2007, they self-released a single before finding themselves under new management and a record deal, which saw a release of ‘I Hate NY’ single and a follow up with the unleashing of this album ‘Strange Ways Of Going Home’. Picking up on old Punk sound and dressing it up in some modern sound they put themselves forward as “the answer to all who have lost faith in noisy, barefaced and Rock’n’Roll”. They’re not the first ones to consider themselves to be the chosen ones for the resurrection of the Rock’n’Roll corpse, though I’m not so sure if it ever really died anyway, it just gets dead drunk puking up in a ditch over some equally drunk bird’s bosom every weekend. Well, let’s see how they’re doing raising this Lazarus from his sluggish state. The answer is not that bad. A lot of punk rock these days happens in front of a mirror with a punk posturing and mimicking the attitude with ball-less result - or more precisely, it’s commercially orientated bullshit affecting a rebel substance. SEP7EMBER seems to get above that and their music feels more genuine rather than pretentious and stands well above the genre’s average even though they’re not exactly pushing the envelope and the breaking the boundaries into unknown musical territories. They’re also revoking some hard-pop quite well, which also guarantees many of good and catchy song structures.
The strongest points were ‘I Hate NY’ that as I mentioned was the introducing single. The other, yet better for me was ‘One Thing’; it shows the fusion of Punk and Rock with catchiness in exactly the way how it should be done. Another to mention would be ‘So’ a slower track, moody with great atmosphere giving an emotive charge to it, you take on board the vocal’s good quality, great bass line, the guitars are subtle but build the song quite well. It also feels that there’s been a lot more of concentrated thought put into its composition and lyrics as well as its play in its entire length, more attention to details. This means that it comes out to give a sense that it’s the song they cared about and put themselves most into as well. The song is presented in its unplugged version at the end as well. Considering that it’s really one of the best here, it’s not only a good inclusion in terms of quality, but also as an idea. My criticism would be that it might have been better to pare down the album to fewer songs as some are a tad familiar to each other or present their sequence differently to show off each song’s interesting points more strikingly. To sum up, they’ve delivered on the promise to restore some faith in the genre, on some catchy good and enjoyable songs that don’t feel lame. They’re certainly not a waste of time and a pleasant surprise.
Tracklist
01. View Into Blur – 3.33
02. I Hate NY – 3.45
03. Run – 4.45
04. One Thing – 3.46
05. So – 4.24
06. Rocket To Somewhere – 3.43
07. Carpets – 2.51
08. Bitterness – 4.42
09. Gods Are Laughing – 4.14
10. Superhero Smash Hit Wonder – 3.03
11. Remaining Days – 4.090
12. All Quiet – 3.18
13. So (Unplugged) – 2.37
Line-up
Boris Pillmann – Vocals
Guido Dobrautz – Guitar
Bernd Siedler – Guitar
Bill Peckham – Bass
Hakan Cetin – Drums
Websites
http://www.september7000.de / https://www.facebook.com/septemberspace
Cover Picture
Rating
Music: 8
Sound: 8
Total: 8 / 10
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