Childhood Sweetheart Records (label)
28 August 2010 (released)
21 August 2010
There’s a lot of this about and for Blacklisters to stand out they need to be something special. There’s good and bad on this EP, and I mean really bad. The Belt Party EP is musically pretty strong; it’s hardcore at its rawest.
The good? Well, Belt Party is a tight nasty tune, while Hero to China is a pacier more complex piece of work. 29 years is a bit of chugger but there’s a bit more light and shade. Oddly it sometimes feels as if they are holding back, and that could be because...
The bad (and the ugly)? The vocals; they are awful even by the usual pitiful standards of this genre. This is really horrible stuff, at times it sounds as if he’s vomiting, being strangled and having a problems with piles, at the same time. If the desired effect was to terrify and confront, they’ve badly miscalculated, they're just juvenile and comical. More problematic is it denigrates the hard work of the rest of the band.
