Unglued Reviews

Alternative rock band Classic Case combine aggressive guitar with melodic passages, dramatic soaring vocals, and occasional flourishes of keyboard, but unfortunately one element missing from their mix is strong songwriting. Devil’s Advocate is the most obvious example on this sophomore album of the contrast between restraint and sudden aggression, but even at this extreme the band suffers from a sense of blandness that makes their music too easy to overlook.

The vaguely political Scott Free’s refrain, “Distract everyone and they won’t get to the bottom of this”, does stick in the mind to some degree, but the post-hardcore Unsteady and shimmering Into A Nightmare are eminently forgettable.

The stripped down title track is almost jazzy and almost background music, and the understated noodling that makes up the bulk of Stalemate (Falling In Love) likewise sees the band falter without big guitars to support them. However, even Vampires, which marries strong riffing with spooky atmospherics that recall Matchbook Romance’s Monsters, proves not to be as interesting as that description suggests.

Characterised by acoustic guitar, and strings arranged by producer Page Hamilton, Living In A Dream is almost a cliché, but it’s actually one of the tracks on the album that succeeds most, thanks to being more fully realised than the likes of the abruptly ending Fatal Phrase.

There are a few adequate moments, as outlined above, but the album’s strongest cut is the last track, All Of Us Are In Danger, thanks to its unusual lyrics, explosive riffs and dynamic arrangement. However, it’s just not good enough to be worth persevering through the rest of the album for.

Owen Heitmann