No Comply – Your Life Is Your Direction
This is a 6 Track EP from Plymouth’s female fronted Skacore sextet No Comply. The fact that the band’s vocalist is female makes for something new, and having a female vocalist certainly seems to have worked for them. It makes their sound truly unique and way different from what other bands out there are doing. Hopefully Kelly will be an inspiration for girls to front their own Skacore bands and not let it be a male dominated genre. The first track, ‘Your Life Is Your Direction’ kicks off with the highly exciting horn section before you are lead into Kelly’s superb vocals. The drumming on this track is very fast paced and along with the Guitars provides a great base for the vocals to lie on. The horn section on this track is really exciting and really seems to flow well with Kelly’s vocals here to produce a really great song. The second track, ‘Decide’ kicks off with a great Guitar riff and then the Drumming comes in later, before firing you into the vocals. The drumming on this track provides quite a steady beat and the horn section is used to accompany the guitar and bass when there are no vocals. There are also some male backing vocals added into the mix in this song. The third track, ‘Misuse of Control’ again starts with guitar and bass, then drums and then vocals. Although Kelly has a Hardcore tinge to her vocals she still manages to keep them very melodic, and again there are male backing vocals. The drumming is fast paced with a strong guitar riff coming through there. There is an emotional feel to the music also, and you don’t really get this very often with Skacore bands. On the fourth song, ‘Rejected’ the vocals are not quite as Hardcore as on the other tracks and also the drumming is at a slower face, but there is a firing sound coming from the Guitar’s and the horn section works really well to give the song its finishing touches. The fifth track, ‘Falling from Crosses’ kicks off with horn section, guitar and bass. The vocals on this track are absolutely superb and the Chorus sounded really familiar. The vocals are really hardcore and the horn section really does manage to come through well. Also on this track is some very strong and powerful drumming. The final track, ‘Background Action’ is also a Skacore track and a good one it is too. You know that this band is not just another Ska Punk one because you can hear the hard edge, Hardcore vocals coming through in the songs. The horn section is again done well and the track is an extremely melodic one. At times they sound like a female fronted Capdown, but their melodic side shows that they are a lot more than that. This band can be Hardcore yet melodic at the same time, which is probably because of them being female fronted. This is a great EP from a superb UK act that will hopefully continue to flourish, gradually getting bigger and bigger, gaining many fans as they tour.