Title: Are We All The Same Distance Apart?
Format Reviewed: MP3
Format Released: 30th October 2015
Reviewed By: Homer Kelly
Today I have here Cheltenham-born melodic punk rockers Crooks UK and their fresh October 30th released debut album, the emotional Are We All The Same Distance Apart.
These guys are new members of that modern, darker wave of melodic pop-punk that borrows heavily from the riffage, tonality and breakdowns of post-hardcore, while leaving the screaming behind for melodic but decidedly minor singing: a sound championed by bands like Lower Than Atlantis and Mallory Knox. One immediately noticeable fact and tick in the pros column for me is that Crooks UK, while still firmly in that box in a tonal sense, choose to borrow from the hardcore tinged pop-punk of the day like Neck Deep and The Story So Far and play their super melodic punk at truly fierce speeds, something immediately refreshing in a sub-genre I usually find bland.
The album opens with one of the best instances of this, Above Me. The track starts us off with frantic high impact drums and punching chords that forcefully grabs the attention: my ears immediately pricked up at the start of this song. The song itself however fails to hit as hard as its opening, in the middle becoming a bit of a nondescript sequence of breakdowns and a chorus that doesn't really register, more just washing over you, until all of a sudden at the two-and-a-half minute mark it picks us up out of the half time back to a punk beat and everything's making sense again, bringing new life and lift to the song while also giving the final slow chorus definition and weight, rather than being the other half time section in a song full of half time sections that many songs in this genre turn out to be.
If the first song showcases the rough, imperfect version of what this band can do, track two What Might Have Been is the best of their blend. I don't usually love this type of music (if you hadn't noticed) but I was very happy to find this song in here, it is a cracker. Starting off with just brooding guitar and vocal it suddenly launches into a relentless punk song that forces you to rock your head and even when the inevitable piece of half-time comes in it sounds great because rather than being surrounded by stop and start staccato riffs or other half-time breakdowns it contrasts to the frantic verses. This is my definite high point of the album
Of the three singles so far released with videos: May Be, Schöne Seele and A Few Peaceful Days, the latest release Schöne Seele is my definite favourite. Probably because it is the song that most borrows from modern hardcore pop-punk. Though entirely mid-tempo, it holds a lot of similarities with The Story So Far's latest album in which they've taken a turn for the slower. This song feels like Crooks UK have taken their own, more minor style of melody and instrumentation and tried to write a song in that style, and I think it's worked really well.
In fact, barring the couple of ballads that I unfortunately can call nothing but dull, these guys do a really good job of bringing a faster, rawer version of this style of punk rock to the world, despite the crystal clarity of the production. Still keeping the same kind of chords and melody, still that overarching minor feel but the addition of blinding speed really breathing life into a genre that falls flat almost every time for me. The downside to this is that such a commitment to that particular melodical style can really be detrimental in getting songs to stick. Despite notably enjoying a good few of the songs in the album I couldn't sing you a part of any of them. It saddens me that the only way I could make someone understand what these guys sounded like without playing them is "Lower Than Atlantis but faster", because these guys as far as I can see are as good if not better.
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