Thank God / Life At These Speeds ‎– Thank God / Life At These Speeds split 7" - The edges of the cover have very light wear from shipping to the vendor

Thank God / Life At These Speeds ‎– Thank God / Life At These Speeds split 7"

- The edges of the cover have very light wear from shipping to the vendor

"Thank God is apparently a 'punk jam band'. I'm still not quite sure what that means, but they have members from Guyana Punch Line and Antischism. These guys play some pretty weird stuff here; "Ahhh, the Magical 90's." (Long Live Tomo) opens with a ground bass line and octave chords mixed with horns that remind me of elephants' trunks - slightly masturbatory, it seems, but it works well at creating a sense of confusion and despair. This turns into some solid, gritty, emo. The next song, You Think the Sounds Will Help, is more in that punk/emo styling with nicely disorientating loud/soft and stop/start stuff going on. There's always this feeling of being out of your element, it sounds a bit like listening to a maniacal Hot Cross underwater.

Life at These Speeds. Now, I'm very familiar with these guys. This is some tops emo, and is a bit calmer and in a way more resigned than previous efforts; it seems somehow aged and weather-beaten. Quite fitting seeing as these are the last of the band's recordings (combined with that Keep Singing! vegan comp). It consistently retains that 90s emo style power to really emote but tries some new things out, which is pretty cool. Younger Monkey is like a classic emo song, complete with lyrics about nature, time and efforts in vain with mixed with hopelessness, and some twinkliness near the start. Older Eagle has a tight double vocals thing going on and there's a sample of a woman with a pretty voice speaking French, which works really well. Really good, polite, introspective emo.

The packaging on this record is pretty cool, it's in that style of handwriting and things from magazines cut out and stuck on. Both bands bring something new to the floor here in a genre prone to saturation, definitely a good'un." - Ciaran Power