Tuesday 10 October 2017

Album Review: Are You Ready? by Backfire Away


Yesterday we reviewed 69enfermos latest album and mentioned about wanting to look further at South American punk bands. Well, purely by coincidence today's review also features a South American band - Backfire Away from Sao Paulo, Brazil. In September this five piece pop punk/hardcore punk and released the EP Are You Ready?, here are my thoughts on it.


The EP begins with title track Are You Ready? Fast guitars and hard hitting drums are the order of the day here and are joined brilliantly by some angry, aggressive and passionate vocals. Are You Ready? is about spending time with your friends and family and finding a common cause to be passionate about. The chorus in particular really stood out to me on my first listen as the singer screams out "If You Don't Stand For Something, You Will Fall For Anything, Think About Your Friends And Your Family, Are You Ready To Do The Right Thing?" That's one of the choruses I can easily imagine a crowd of people screaming back at the band. The second song is named Evergreen. Evergreen is a lot softer in sound compared to the opening track. I'm reminded a bit of New Found Glory here with bit of the harder music combined with more poppy vocals. I like that Backfire Away aren't afraid to test out more than one genre of punk rock and I love how well they do them. Evergreen is about looking at yourself and trying to work past the bad times. Drowsy is a fantastic song. Starting out slowly the song is a builder. The beginning is quite slow and soft finding itself in the emo genre of music before things really kick off and we are treated to a frenzied pop punk assault. The range in vocals on Drowsy is fantastic, they do from soft emo, to fast pop punk before finishing with a primal hardcore scream. I like songs that make you feel like you've been on a journey and this is certainly one of those. Lastly is the song No Patience. No Patience is about airing your grievances with someone to try and safe the relationship. This is another song that builds and flows nicely. This time however it starts at a pace before moving into a slower more emotional section before and a big finale that includes a fantastic piece of guitar soloing.

Are You Ready? is an EP that leaves me wanting to hear much more from Backfire Away. Personally after yesterdays perhaps impulsive decision to look deeper into the world of South American punk rock I am now ready to fully commit to uncover the best that the continent has to offer. If, like me, you are just on the edges of listening to South American punk rock that Backfire Away are a great band to start this next chapter of musical discoveries.

Stream and download Are You Ready? here: https://backfireawayhc.bandcamp.com/

Like Backfire Away here: https://www.facebook.com/backfireawayhc/

This review was written by Colin Clark.

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