Life Sentence
Press releases are funny things. You never know quite how to take them. Quite often they are so far removed from the little plastic disc you've received that you can't quite believe they have been written by anyone who has been in hundred mile radius to the disc. Most sound like they have been cobbled together through reviews and build you up with a false sense of optimism and will only leave you disheartened by the time the laser has done its business.
Being ready to write this off as another UK hardcore band where 'hardcore' is a loose fitting term and the various exciting adjectives peppering the press release are nothing but dirty, dirty lies, I was surprised. This is hardcore-lite if you will and doesn't have the brutal intensity or vibrancy of bands of other UK Hardcore bands like The Legacy or Attack! Vipers!, but there is some promise within Doctor Death.
All though the album title is a little misleading and implies that they are somehow darker than they are in fact are. What you find with Doctor Death is tuneful sensibilities and lyrics brimming in parts with positivity.
'Armitage Shanks' sounds like it might be a cheeky nudge to where it may have been recorded. No I'm not being facetious, this album was actually recorded, according to the sleeve notes in 'various houses, sheds and toilets in Gravesend'. The song is melodic in the extreme 'I'll still be here when you're gone/Drifting far away' emotes singer Dan Mackey. Although the guitar parts could belong to any modern hardcore band its lean on melody makes it accessible and stand out against the current crop.
What Life Sentence have in droves is a sing a long quality to their songs: the rise and fall of 'Defences' pleads 'Don't do it/You're so much better than her/There is so much more to life' whilst Wake Up Call's cries 'The choices you make will see you from here on out/When time is of the essence and its running out'. This is a band which on disc sound like they may be just a bit special live and would definitely be worth checking out.
With a throng of dedicated supporters already for this Gravesend four-piece, aided by airplay from Radio One and Xfm, this is a band which will go far in 2007. If Life Sentence were to support some big hitters this year and show they can recreate some of the passion shown on disc, they might be on to a winner.