Knyght-Bet Everything

Anko
2009

I heard this band's demo "Destination Unknown" a couple of years ago. It was honestly quite messy with poor production. The writing and playing were scattered and weak at best. So as I started up their new offering I was wondering if improvements had been made in the last two years. Let's start with the production since that was a major shortcoming the last time around. The production has improved a lot this time around. On the last disc the production was an absolute horror that made it hard to make out much of what the band were really doing. Now at least it's coherent and adequate enough that it doesn't take away from the sound. Now the question of whether or not the music is any better is the major deal. The music here is at least reasonably tight and they actually sound like a hard rock band for the most part. That might sound basic, but that is a big step up from their last disc. However, it is certainly not without some major flaws. Vocalist Tommy has a voice that's high and by high I mean that's about all he can do is sing high and kind of nasally. That style doesn't work well here as he just sounds thin and lifeless on most of the songs and actually it's especially hard to take on the slow song. The music is alright, but they have real trouble bringing enough hooks to the sound. They seem to rely a lot on the vocals and that just doesn't work because there is not enough pull these songs off. They hit some decent opening riffs, but then they just don't bring enough during the songs to keep things going. There is hope though and I realized that when I got to the final track of this EP. "Shut up" is a far from perfect song, but they show promise. There's a short piano piece with a good, sharp transition into a fine, cutting riff. The riff is perhaps the best part of this disc and it's a shame they didn't milk it more on this song because they could have. Still the song keeps flowing with a solid drumbeat popping along. The vocals are high and shrill, but Tommy shows some real emotion on this song and that goes a ways even if the range isn't the best. So they end on a positive note. Not a great song, but a decent one that could be very good given some work. Okay, the positives here are the production is way better, the music is somewhat better and I can sense some sort of a musical direction. All of that is a huge improvement over that last disc. The things I don't like are that they they need to tighten up the music, bring up the guitars, embelish those hooks and re-consider some of the keyboard parts if they really want to sound like a hard rock band. The biggest issue is the vocals just are not going to cut it with this sound. The range is just not enough to be solid or consistant for this style of music. So they have made some real strides since their last effort, but there is a lot of work to do if they ever want to really be taken seriously.

www.myspace.com/knyghtband