Boy Sets Fire - 'Last Year's Nest' (Wind Up / Epic)
3/5
By: Thomas Hannan
Somewhere between the musical spectacle of System of a Down and the moral fibre of Fugazi lie Delaware quintet Boy Sets Fire, and their tale goes a little something like this. Huge, no, scrap that, gigantic guitars abound, no over-intricate solos or stacks of effects, just one big chugging riff underpinning vocalist Nathan Gray's yelps and screams.
Or, at least that's the way it seems. The opening minute or so of 'Last Year's Nest' (lifted from their current 'Tomorrow Come Today' LP) could fool you into thinking that this was a band very much obsessed with the 'energetic shouting over walls of noise' school of rock and roll, but the harmonies and melody of the chorus drag it in to something all the more accessible. Right there, they strike a pleasant balance.
Just a shame that they go all Evanescence on us with an entirely unnecessary piano breakdown really, as if it stuck to the rawness found in some of BSF's earlier material (and hinted at in glimpses here) it would have packed a much heftier punch. They've still got some strong tunes, as 'Last Year's Nest' makes plainly obvious. But be it the pointlessly lavish production or amount of cash behind them since their move to Wind Up records, something about Boy Sets Fire doesn't quite bite like it used to.
Artists in this article: Boy Sets Fire
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