After seeing The Aran Route live in Derby last month, I just had to hear their demo as this band really kicked ass live. First song ‘What If?’ mixes some really nice overlapping vocals and great interlocking guitar and bass riffs to give it masses of emotion and dynamic. The vocals kick into screams and the guitars hit the distortion pedal at choice moments. the Middle 8 which goes all minor on us is very inventive, but works well before building slowly back into a feast of overlapping almost emo vocals and big riffs. It mixes hard beats, melodic hooks and emotional vocals to produce a great start to this E.P ‘Sell Out Give In’ starts much heavier with a booming drum loop and deep bass but as the vocals come in, it gets softer before building. The Aran Route have a real talent for overlapping their vocal hooks, it sort of reminded me of Hundred Reasons in the way it build vocally but with a more electronic and melodic feel to much of their music, it has plenty of diversity. The guitars kick in and out and this song is based around some brooding bass and clever vocal mixes. It isn’t as catchy as the first song but the end changes tempo, kicks up the heavy guitar and gets it moving into a big finish. Final track ‘The Lines’ kicks straight in with that deep bass and after being joined by some crazy effects and cool drum loops, the vocals come in with a really catchy and nice pattern. The chorus kicks up the power and becomes a more industrial style metal but with the electronic backing it keeps a drum n bass edge which is very interesting yet still really catchy. The vocalist really changes his styles on this song, with a nice softer bridge in the middle and in all the songs the vocal performances are really strong and The Aran Route really build each song to emotional peaks. This is a really well produced offering of excellent, emotional and dynamic heavy rock with a great mix of alternative and interesting influences, one great reason to travel to Derby.
Review by Gaz
