Aree And The Pure Heart are a punk rock band from Atlanta, Georgia. In September 2015 - I'm really slow to discover this one - they released their debut EP named Heartsongs. Here's what I thought about it.
The opening track is named Waiting On A Sunset. Immediately we are presented with some soulful, athemic punk rock in a similar mould to The Gaslight Anthem. Vocal wise I'm reminded of The Loved Ones’ Dave Hause. So basically if Dave House sang for The Gaslight Anthem you get Aree And The Pure Heart. The overall tone of Waiting On A Sunset feels incredibly uplifting and the band’s ability to write a fantastic song really is apparent. American Love starts quietly with just some good sing-a-long vocals and some gentle guitar strumming. This also gives it a nice feeling of intimacy. Of course it builds into a much bigger sounding track, but the intimate feeling remains. The more I listen to the song, I kind of feel like American Love could also be amazing as an acoustic track. Perhaps that was how it was originally written. The third song on the EP is titled Tear Down Every Wall. Like American Love, the song starts quietly before building into a big sounding anthem. The lyric that really stands out throughout the song is "Our Love Will Tear Down Every Wall." To me this lyric means that if people are working together as one then nothing can get in your way. The song starts up by talking about dreaming of a better life but being held down before deciding it's time to take charge. I love songs about making a positive change and that's exactly what I think this song is about. The penultimate song on Heartsongs is Kamikaze. As is becoming somewhat of a trademark of Aree And The Pure Heart, Kamikaze starts slowly building towards a big punch to start the song proper. Kamikaze definitely has that big punch to it. After the slow build, the music cuts out completely with just some big vocals from Aree remaining. This was such an effective way of catching my attention. It also shows a lot of confidence from Aree letting his vocals do all of the work. I bet this is fantastic live. The final song of the EP is called Exploding Heart. Beginning with a simple drum beat and some gang vocals, Exploding Heart is a song that is packed with soul. The tempo of the track is defintely slower than the previous four songs with the vocals really carrying the melody for the majority of the song. There are plenty of gang vocals, harmonies and sing-a-longs throughout the song and feels like a perfect closer not only for the EP but for a Aree And The Pure Heart live set.
Like I said I was really, really late in getting into Aree And The Pure Heart. This is a fantastic debut release - go and check it out. Then like all the relevant social media pages as something new is probably due very soon.
Stream and download the EP here: https://areeandthepureheart.bandcamp.com/album/heartsongs-ep
Like Aree And The Pure Heart here: https://www.facebook.com/Areeandthepureheart/
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