The Book Slave - All Bad Things

I've seen The Book Slave live before. It was last summer in some random attic of a warehouse in West Haven, six bands in a night that finished with Mouse Folk's drums set and members sprawled out on the floor. These guys played sometime in the middle. You will find their music somewhere in the middle between melody and dissonance. Two guys with guitars and one of them sometimes on synth, both stomping around and screaming. A lot of people won't go for this. While it is extremely minimalistic, in listening to them I can tell these guys know what good music is, even if their execution isn't always perfect. It's raw and honest. There are no drums or bass, but somehow it works that way. They're like The Softies of screamo.

For me, the two middle tracks of this 4 track release, "Roy Orbison" and "I Missed It", stand out because they employ more guitar melody lines in these. My favorite part of this band is the little catchy guitar and synth lines these guys come up with. This may not be a release you want to listen to all the time, but it's certainly something you might be in the mood for once in awhile. Skram fans who want to change things up take note. "all bad things 200 yellow cassette tapes containing 4 songs recorded live at Dead Air by Will Killingsworth. released by We Rise records with artwork by derrick shanholtzer. released October 25th, 2009. $3 at shows, $4 for mailorder." You can get more about this band from Northford and stream a few Book Slave tracks, including the song which I feel best represents them, "The World in a Bad Mood" (not on this EP) at http://www.myspace.com/thebookslave.