Band : Parties Break Hearts
Album title : Life Is Too Short To Dance With Ugly People
Label : Lockjaw
Distributor : Progressive Publicity
Release date : 08/09/2008
Release : CD

This Bern based Swiss band was formed about a year ago from the remnants of previous musical projects, and already the foursome of Mike (lead vocals & guitar), Leandro (guitar), Martin (bass & backing vocals), and Christian (drums) has toured with The Flatliners, The Underwater, and The Idoru, played the Openair Eichlerhuus 2007 (headlined by The Real McKenzies) and Müh Fest 2007 (headliners Estate and Insane) events, and was featured on the Rockspotting programme for Swiss national radio Couleur 3.

Having taken influences from the likes of Story Of The Year, Lost Prophets, Alter Bridge, Reuben, Jimmy Eat World, Funeral For A Friend, Silverstein, Deftones, Rise Against and many more, the band bring music which is at best described as a mixture of emotionally laden Hardcore with an emphasis on Groove-laden Rock. I'm afraid however that, due to Mike's typical vocal signature (slightly hoarse and nasal, and somewhat melancholic overall) and the fact that he frequently gets either Emo or Screamo styled vocal backing, people will in the first place see this band as a Emo/ Screamo Hardcore act rather than the nice Modern Rock outfit they really are. I have to admit that at the first listening session (which I did while searching for the info and reading it) I was rather hung up on the emotional side of the band's music, and indeed mistook 'em for a Emo/ ScreamoCore band myself. The music only on the background, that idea incrusted itself in my mind even further when I read which bands the guys consider their influences. You have to understand that, overall, I ain't too wild about the whole Emo/ Screamo scene...except for some truly exceptional bands...but even at that first session there was something I liked immediately. So when the time came to give the album a sérious listening session, I understood quite quickly that PBH was definitely more than that!

You can make your acqaintance with this band's music without leaving your seat, by surfing to myspace.com/pbhrock (the band's own site partiesbreakhearts.ch also linking you that way), where you'll find mp3 samples of album openers "Scrape!" and "Fake As You", which give you a pérfect image of what you can expect from the 12-track (good for 44 minutes) album (as well as some video footage of the guitarist recording some snippets in the studio). Additionally, the band also posted a live version of a new song. And when you've done thàt, I'm sure you'll agree with me that we've got a very quaint and good band here! People in the UK and Germany coùld be lucky, as PBH is making short tours in that country come Sept. 12-15 (UK) and 16-19 (Germany). Check out the MySpace page for more details.

93/100

Tony.