EP: Dead!

Every so often a band comes along hits you clean between the eyes and completely blows you off your feet. Hampshire 5 piece band Dead! did exactly that to me the first time I saw them live and each time since they have continued to captivate me. The youth, innocence and the everlasting amounts of energy remind me of when first saw the Manic Street Preachers back in the early 90’s at the Joiners in Southampton, looking like a 90’s version of The Clash.

Dead! are of a new breed not brought up on punk rock but on a newer breed of bands such as the likes of “Placebo”, “Panic At The Disco’ and “My Chemical Romance”, with the bands name has been taken from the song “Dead!” from the My Chemical Romance album “The Black Parade”. They have worked very hard over the past 6 months securing gigs with many top names such as William Control, Fearless Vampire Killers, and recently taking on their 1st UK tour with Bristol’s Ashestoangels, carefully making sure they learn from these top acts how to deal with the ever changing music scene.

Dead! have a very DIY approach and have made all manor of their own different types of merchandise to raise money to keep the band on the road as well as their record their debut 4 track EP. The tracks were recorded, engineered, mixed and mastered by Neil Kennedy at the Ranch Production House in Southampton. The band here have made four songs and a bonus track that all show a bright future within this their initial early creation process, opening with “Everything Everything” you could be fooled into thinking you were listening to other bands, but this it is just the early influences that the band have bleeding through while they try to find “their” own trademark sound. The lyrics are catchy and the tunes are well put together but sadly at this stage the songs on this EP fail to capture the sheer energy from the live shows, which even the best bands find difficult.

The band are some what of a “Frankenstein” band taking bits and pieces from all over the place, at the moment one song sounds like one band and another sounds like another and so on, I feel some future consistence will most certainly come along as the band progresses. The two stand out tracks “Beautiful Broken Bones” and the bonus freebie “Damned Restless Future” show the band at their current best with their twin guitars along with Alex Mountford’s distinctive vocals screaming out to be heard. This is by no means the finished article as the band’s creative processes have a long way to before they actually find their sound, they are all young and have plenty of time on their hands. Their enthusiasm and energy knows no bounds, it is very interesting seeing what a band at this stage in their career develop into, this EP shows some glimpses of something special, the question is can this band use this to their full potential.