Eaten Back To Life are a four piece pop punk band from Missouri. The band, influenced by the likes of The Ramones, The Lillingtons, The Riverdales and The Huntingtons as well as 80s horror movies, released a new EP back in May named Love Songs For The Departed. Here is my review.
The EP begins with a short thirty-nine second blast of music named Dimension Duality. This serves purely as an introduction, not only to the EP but to the punk style that Eaten Back To Life play. The buzzsaw like guitars really show a band that wear their influences on their sleeves.
The album starts properly with the second song, Together Tonight. This is a pop punk record so there had to be a song about being in love. Together Tonight is about being together no matter what bad stuff is happening to you. Like you would expect from a pop punk song, there are plenty of hooks and catchy lines during the track. The band sound at their best when the gang vocals come into play down the final stretch. Born To Kill starts with some more wonderful buzzsaw guitars before we are greeted with a slightly rougher, gravelly vocal. Something I wasn't quite expecting but really enjoyed. This mixed with the softer, sweeter vocals towards the end of the song made for some very interesting listening.
The fourth song Defect is about trying to figure out what makes a "defective" person tick. This song did remind me a lot of Teenage Bottlerocket in its sound, but that is by no means a bad thing. The music is relentless, played at a breakneck pace that really gets you pumped up and another brilliant vocal performance really amps the energy up even further. I had a feeling of breathlessness by the time the song finished. The penultimate song on Love Songs For The Departed is named Contact With The Other Side. This track reverts back to the more sugary sweet, pop punk sound - similar to The Queers or Squirtgun (I've been reading a book about Lookout Records, hence why those two bands came to mind). I like the variety displayed in Eaten Back To Life's sound. I often find that pop punk releases can be hampered a bit by sticking too much to the same formula and sounding too similar. With the two distinct vocal styles in Eaten Back To Life this doesn't happen. The tempo of the track is not quite so fast paced as the previous tracks and certainly focuses a lot more on melody. The song itself is about drifting through life wondering if you are actually alive. Sometimes things that happen just don't feel real and you begin to question yourself and potentially your sanity.
Love Songs For The Departed concludes with a song named Undertaker. This is another solely instrumental track. I like that the EP is bookended with two instrumental songs, giving a feeling of having a start point and an end point with the story in-between.
Stream and download Love Songs For The Departed here: https://eatenbacktolife.bandcamp.com/album/love-songs-for-the-departed
Like Eaten Back To Life here: https://www.facebook.com/ebtlhorrorpunk
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