| CD REVIEW Misconduct |
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Band : Misconduct This now household name in the world of Melodic Hardcore & Punk Rock was apparently formed in ’95, in an concious effort to keep the “old” ethics of the late ‘80s and early ‘90s Hardcore scenes alive. Knowing the band by name (and from reviews) from that last decade of the previous millenium, I was somewhat surprised by the summary (or perhaps “matter-of-fact”) way both band and label took on the band’s identity, not going further back in the band’s history than to the 2004 release of Misconduct’s previous album …United As One. No history-of-the-band on the band’s own website misconduct.nu, which is merely a means to direct the surfer to the band’s pages at MySpace, Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter, nor at the pages you get directed to! Well, I eventually found a partial story on the band’s page at Last.fm, which is where I’ll invite you to surf to if you whould feel the need to get into the details a bit further. Things we like to remember here are: 1) Was a Bad Taste Records band for a long time (time during which several releases came out, in chronological order: 2 songs of the band’s only demo on the 1996 compilation This Is Bad Taste – The Ultimate Punk Party; February 1997’s debut EP The Change; Sept. 1997’s full-length debut …Another Time; the 1998 single Signed In Blood; February 1999’s A New Direction; the 2000 split-CD with Canada’s The Almighty Trigger Happy; and 2001’s One Last Try full-length)…2) In Jan. 2003 Misconduct released the 3-track EP New Beginning on the Side By Side Records imprint, they followed that up with the 2004 full-length …United As One…3) Misconduct has been releatively successful from the start, having been allowed to join household names on their Scandinavian, European, and even North-American tours…4) Band suffered several membership changes (even threw in the towel for a period of 4 weeks in 1999), with singer/ guitarist Fredrik Olsson remaining as only original member today (the others, guitarist Erik Ydlinger, bassist Simon Guidoum, and drummer Daniel Petri all came into the line-up àfter the Last.fm biography). Things I like to remember from listening to their new album (indeed the first in almost 6 years), is the full-trottle melodic onslaught, the lyrical content (the guys are still into all the good qualities which attracted me to the whole Punk Rock & Hardcore scene in the first place: unity, respect & love for each other and, last but not least, peace!), and the weird opening and closing tracks, which stand out on the album for being somewhat diffferent stylistically: album opening “Intro” is an instrumental in which the band uses effects on guitar and drums (to somewhat “Industrial”-izing result) plus atmospheric keyboards, and album closing song “Side By Side Part II” is a semi-acoustic semi-ballad in which the same tactics are used…plus it has a female backing singer (regretfully I have no intel as to whom did what here)…giving the track a far more Poppy feel than the other songs on the album (the combination of Punk Rock and Melodic Hardcore with the nice lead/ backing harmonies and the lyrical contents on the latter category of songs somehow reminded me of old Bad Religion)! At any rate, with their history the Swedes (originally from the small town Kristinehamn, at the borders of Värnern Lake in the South of the country – the fairly big-sized lake is situated somewhere between Goteborg and the more Northern Orebro) have earned the right to deviate occasionally from the usual formula. Right, if you’d like to listen to some of the band’s music, all that’s left for you to do is to surf on over to misconduct.nu, from where you can be redirected to other sites (alternally, you should perhaps also lokk up the band’s page at Last.fm). If you’re lucky enough to live in the good neighborhood of where the quartet will be performing come this Summer, or don’t mind a little travel for some festival, you might even catch the band on a stage somewhere, eh? 84/100 Tony. |