Band : Sing It Loud
Album title : Everything Collide
Label : Epitaph
Distributor : PIAS
Release date : 10/05/2010
Release : CD

In early 2007 singer/ guitarist Pat Brown’s former band, the locally legendary (we’re talking Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA) The Semester, had just broken up, and to keep his momentum (other members would continue in projects such as Get Young and Modsun) he started SIL with his cousin Kieren Smith (guitar, backing vocals), completing the band with keyboardist/ synth player Ben Peterson, bassist Nate Flynn, and drummer Christopher Lee (nót the infamous English actor).

On the strength of only 7 shows and their self-titled October 2007 demo, the guys attracted the attention of Bret Durewitz (akà Epitaph Records) with their Pop Punk Rock songs, and were offered a deal. The first result of that came with the March 2008 release of the Come Around EP, recorded with producer Josh Cain (Motion City Soundtrack). The band then got onto a criss-cross American tour with the likes of We The Kings, This Providence, Ludo, The Morning Light, Valencia, Every Avenue, Hit The Lights, All Time Low, Farewell, Cobra Starship, Forever the Sickest Kids, Single File, Cash Cash, and Motion City Soundtrack, before their Mark Trombino full-length debut (also titled Come Around and featuring guest performances of Motion City Soundtrack’s Justin Pierre and All Time Low’s Alex Gaskarth) hit the streets in September 2008. The album did fairly well for a debut full-length, topping at #44 on Billboard’s Heatseekers charts. During Summer 2009, the band spent time on the road on Vans Warped Tour’s Hurley Stage.

During most of early 2009’s touring, Brown started writing/ recording songs through a Pro-Tools rig on his lap top, and when the band had the Warped tour done, they entered the rehearsal room, rehashed the demos, and continued to write before recruiting Jordan Schmidt (All Time Low, Quietdrive) to produce and mix the album (additional mixing coming from Grammy award winning Mike Shipley of Def Leppard, My Chemical Romance and Green Day fame) in the two months it took to record the album. Apparently the guys went about recording one track at the time, inspired by the method producer Mutt Lange used to record Def Leppard’s Hysteria album. In the info posted at their MySpace page, the band confesses having disliked the fact that everyone was putting ‘em in the “Pop Punk” category, and therefore the guys did a conscious effort to break away from that, at take a direction which is more Pop Rock. They also admit to having listened quite a lot to such bands as Taking Back Sunday, The Starting Line, Less Than Jake, Fall Out Boy, and Motion City Soundtrack! Huh, ain’t that Pop Punk to some people as well, or at least partially? I mean, I’ll tell you quite frankly : when I first listened to this album it was without having read any of the info (which I had to look up for myself, you know, because labels these days are getting real lazy…and then start bitching about how difficult it is these days to survive in the music business, oh my!), and the first thing that went through my mind was “Make-out softy Pop Punk”…with nice guitar parts occasionally, and also occasionally with nice piano and keyboard additions (although the band actually has a keyboardist, I have to say you can’t even héar him on most of the songs – to put the records straight, the songs you càn hear him, are album opener “Sugar Sweet”, “Only One”, “Addicted To When You’re Gone”, “Light It Up”, “I Can’t”, and album closer “Wonder Why”, either playing piano, organ/ synth, or emulating strings – but you will nót hear him in the album’s acoustic ballad “Believe In Me”, and the not-mentioned of the 11 songs). One thing which is absolutely okay on the album, are the vocals, and that’s thanks to Schmidt having driven the singers to their best performances. By the way, in the vocal department this second full-length has a first in the fact that on “Shadows” the singers changed their usual roles with each other, meaning Smith sings the leads and Brown backs him up.

To find out whether you like the band’s slight directional change (let’s admit to the guys gearing more towards a (melodic Hard) Rock direction), check out myspace.comsingiitloud as quickly as possible : at the moment the whóle album is posted, and I’ve no idea when that might change (usually does, right?). You might also try to catch the band live on the May tour they’re on right now with Mayday Parade, A Rocket To The Moon, and Sparks The Rescue (check the dates on the band’s MySpace).

87/100

Tony.