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"Timing Is Everything" Over It |
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Their write up says they're all friends from the days before high school… you mean they're already in high school? Damned hard to imagine going by the insert where stand four freshman sized Pac-Sun practitioners who true enough can play the hell out of their instruments and pull the emotional drawstring with the best of 'em who've outlived 'em twice over and have the forehead creases to qualify it. "Timing Is Everything" follows the "Hindsight 20/20" EP and "The Ready Series" debut for the Virginia-based bastions who only four years prior-indeed while in high school-became the band as they exist today. With a recent Vans tour under their belts, Over It comes across as a best of both worlds combining the fortified elements of modern Punk and Indie Rock that are appealing to each of the other classes as the line further blurs between the two. The playability factor is again in vogue in the underground circuit and to that we may refer back to some of our long lost Hard Rock faves of a costumed generation that threw out the hooks with the best of 'em and finally revealed as we flip back through the pages of history. Combine the shred appeal of a Stretch Armstrong or UnderOath, two of the better H/C gone H/R superpowers having escalated the same jump as Over It-raw to refined, aged to perfection, and the progressive growth factor, not inasmuch as "progressive" congestive, but better playing on to tighter, catchier moments… Add in those of the Metal/Punk and Emo variety-Strung Out, Finch, Bodyjar, Millencolin, and Over It, a quick learning adolescent, grown up in lyric and voice, and motivated by those of life's small wonders-a hope, a dream, love, a tear, the stars… and on down the line. "Timing Is Everything" is eleven strong, raging with Speed-core excess on the likes of "Limiter," "Wrong Way," "Nothing Serious," "Cross Tolerance," or "Crush," each a deafening display of riff heavy hyperactivity that are shrewdly offset by a catchy chorus, melodic chord progressions and minor key interloping. Further offsetting themselves as only another Melodic/Hardcore achievement, the firepower is well supported by medium depth and mellower excursions through a slowed but still wandering spirit-"Serial Kisser," "Fall," and "Chasing A Constellation." Over It's music is an emphatic persuasion for the inarguable human factor, present and accounted for here, and not of course, without their little track 12 joke at the end. So for about 80% of the time, they're raging, revealing, and resourceful-one of those few bands among a growing field that'll make you stand up and take notice… and hope they'll become well funded enough to design a better album cover in the future. Released by Lobster Records Review by Vinnie Apicella [va85@columbia.edu] P.O. Box 20252
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