The Stanley And The Search that you once knew is gone. With a slew of member changes, which includes the departure of the vocalist present on their debut album, SATS is more a completely new band than anything else. As such, the Weight EP is pretty distinctive from all of the band’s prior material. While the massive change is a legitimate cause for concern, rest assured that the quality of the music has not been sacrificed in any way as a result of the new line-up. Actually, for Stanley And The Search, the new members have ushered in a sound that faintly hearkens back to earlier pop punk and ska.
This is mainly due to the new vocalist. His voice has a natural ska tinge to it, and his delivery is riddled with sporadic shouts and half-stutters. This style, which is quite unique to modern pop punk, lends itself well to the rest of band’s tendency to mirror that sporadic quality. The best example of this is on the explosive opening track “Punch The Clock” which will undoubtedly burn the infectious “So they say our lives are too short” line into your head in the best way.
Weight is solid throughout, however, there is one misstep: “Leave It”. After repeated listens the song just does not stack up to the other three tracks on the EP sans the intro. Additionally, the static and ambient noise-filled news broadcast outro to the song is completely out of place. The same type of outro is also present at the end of “Sinking Feeling”, the final song on the release. On that song, the outro works well by nature of it being the end of the album. It adds to the conclusiveness the song is supposed to bear. For "Leave It", it simply adds to the monotony of the song and leads to the song overstaying its welcome.
The rest of the songs on Weight, however, are fantastic. "Calendar" has a simultaneous gruffness and feel-good vibe that instantly brings to mind Polar Bear Club. Additionally, the fantastic drumming makes this song almost impossible to not dance to. Because of this, “Calendar” competes with “Punch The Clock” for best song on the EP. Moreover, the final song on Weight, "Sinking Feeling", is unsurprisingly more mellow than the preceding songs, but thoughts of cliché are dispelled almost immediately. This song, like “Calendar”, contains some truly inspired drumming. But what makes the song excellent, however, is the vocal repetition. “Keep on swinging, that’s what they said. Why keep singing if the song is dead” is the repeated line throughout the song, gradually escalating in sincerity and emphasis – a great way to end the album.
Although there have been many changes internally with Stanley And The Search, the band has only grown to be more unique and distinctive because of it. Lead by a new vocalist and excellent drummer (who should be noted as not being a new addition to the band), Stanley And The Search have created an exciting and (mostly) consistent EP in Weight.
Tracklist:
1. Crossing (Intro)
2. Punch The Clocl
3. Leave It
4. Calendar
5. Sinking Feeling
RIYL: The Swellers, Polar Bear Club
Rating:
Written by Marc Saggese
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