Pull Strings, another quality band from the illustrious state of Massachusetts, are an Emo-Punk quartet whose members describe themselves on Facebook with five simple words: “We like to play fast”. While the majority of their EP, The Upside Of Going Blind, is spent keeping the BPM high and hard, Pull Strings shines the most when they slow things down and let the emotion sink in.
The intro Growing Up shows the restraint Pull Strings is capable of. At just under a minute and a half, the song starts slowly and builds up to palm-muted chugs that gear up for the heaviest hitter of The Upside Of Going Blind’s six tracks: Getting Out. The Title Fight influence is extremely obvious in the sound, yet the band is aware of that and attempts to make the sound their own. Sadly, Pull Strings falls short. While Getting Out is a great song and hits home on the emotional spectrum, it’s easy to imagine this as a Title Fight tune with a different singer. But it is when the song slows down for the fantastic closing bridge do Pull Strings show a different flavor of the Punk that Title Fight has made their own. Its driving, melodic, declining octaves just feel like the listener’s getting dragged down with the song. While that’s not the most desirable emotion, it’s an amazing feat that such a young band can create such sentiment with half a minute of music.
Perception Is Everything is another Pull Strings-does-Title Fight sort of track. It’s good, but it’s not Pull Strings. When the solo comes up about two-thirds of the way through, the band shows that they have some guitars chops trying to rear its head about their music. But then they return to the same, similar-sounding band they were for most of their EP so far. Sleeping In, Transparent, and Empty all follow suit as being songs that sound a little too similarly to a band that likely inspired Pull Strings’ existence. While it’s one thing to nod at your inspirations, another to sound exactly like them, and this is where Pull Strings needs to delineate its sound.
Tracklist:
1. Growing Up
2. Getting Out
3. Perception Is Everything
4. Sleeping In
5. Transparent
6. Empty
Rating:
Written by Joe Wasserman
