Switch NX start of this 5 track e.p. with some good old fashioned Pop-Punk, the first track: Learning To Escape, kicks off with a nice quick intro, but in my opinion takes a little too long settling in. The Vocal line is obviously influenced by Ska-Punk (which is definitely a good thing) and provides some refreshment to this otherwise all too familiar blast of early Green Day/Blink 182. Although it is a good song, I feel that from what I saw live they could have put a better track on here to start things off. Up next: Routines, is a song which has a good beat behind it and some great use of the two Guitarists. If signed this song would be a great floor-filler. However the song calms down when the vocals kick, but brings with it some pretty good Bass lines from the Vocalist/Bassist. Again the band has obviously been influenced by the likes of Green Day, which is more noticeable in this track as the vocals are reminiscent of Billy Joe Armstrong. This song is full of stops and starts which are put to pretty good use by the band as a whole, they have worked well with their timing and aren’t afraid to try something different.
The third track on this CD is called Heterophony and provides a catchy Guitar intro before the whole band joins and the song gets a little more edge to it. When the vocals kick in the Guitarists provide a couple of interesting sounding riffs that seem to make me personally want to take more notice of their musicianship rather than what they are singing about. The song is pretty good, however I’m not overly keen as it seems a bit too similar to the first track.
The fourth track is entitled Calendar Kid and takes a few more Ska influences than the rest of the tracks so far. A catchy song with a good beat. This song brings some Skank-a-riffic! Guitar in the chorus and a funky bass line make this song enjoyable to listen too and it gets your foot tapping. Vocally again is too Green Day but the rest of the song backs it up to make this song a damn good Punk song.
The final song on this CD is Part Of Anything and starts out with some fantastic Bass work with the rest of the band joining in before settling down to a Bass/Vocals chorus. This is where the singer proves his worth in my opinion, before turning it up a notch and getting a little aggressive. Switch take it to the first verse with some crunchy Guitar and some very fitting Bass. A very good song with a great rhythm makes sure that this song is great to dance to live. At 4 minutes long this is a couple of minutes over the usual 2min 30 that punk songs tend to last, but it doesn’t get boring.
Overall (3.5 / 5)
Review by Mark
