2013/04/17

Small Parks - Meet Me In Cognito



01. Undone
02. Paralell Thoughts
03. Shifting Positions
04. Retrogession
05. Everything Is Part Of It

Screamo fans look away now, this is modern day emo at its finest. These guys don't leave reviewers a lot of work to do in terms of introducing them, as they sum themselves up perfectly on their Bandcamp page. They share members with several other bands, one of which is Little American Champ (I believe bassist Danny Petrilli is also the drummer for LAC, but I could be wrong) and that's what brought me to this release. Little American Champ released one of my favourite eps of last year with 'Nothing Forward, Nothing Backward' and I recommend checking them out if you like gruff, melodic punk in the vein of Jawbreaker and Small Brown Bike (who doesn't?!) but focussing on Small Parks, they compare themselves to Jimmy Eat World and that's spot on - opening track 'Undone' could easily fit on a number of Jimmy Eat World releases, in both sound and theme, with it's beautiful closing refrain of "Chaos isn’t comfort / And comfort isn’t love / I’m trying to find a balance / But can this damage be undone?" and things go from strength to strength with second track 'Parallel Thoughts' which is probably my favourite track, with some awesome dual vocals driving the song throughout. If you're looking for a more modern comparison, they could easily be compared to Gates (FFO Mineral, Braid etc) but in truth Small Parks have an original sound and definitely stand out amongst the current crop of midwest-style emo bands as ones to watch. I know this is an EP that I'll revisit time and time again until we get new material, which hopefully won't be too far in the future.

Reviewed by Gary.

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