Promising debut of
Bands seem increasingly keen nowadays to have some higher purpose; to use their platform as role models to raise awareness for some worthy cause, to educate kids, or to make profound social or political statements that make us reassess the way in which we live our lives. It's therefore nice to see a band content to simply revel in the joys of making "Modern Hardcore music"; a mission statement that 'Worlds Between Us' seem to think is more than acceptable. And I agree. They grew up listening to a selection of Converge, Poison The Well, Refused and JR Ewing; which simultaneously shows that they have rather good taste, and that they are probably quite young – JR Ewing have only been around for since 1998 themselves.
By signing to the Tunbridge Wells based Engineer records they're following in a succession of legendary underground bands, including Hot Water Music, Chamberlain, Planes Mistaken For Stars, Winter In June and Urotsukidoji (although they didn't release the great split EP between the latter two, that was Ignition...) – a fine pedigree to be sure, but a lot to live up to.
As far as expectations go, 'Worlds Between Us' are a mixed success the music on the whole is very good; a technical hardcore that sounds a lot like Deluge or perhaps even early Thrice, but suffers from an abundance of shrieking 80’s guitar strikes that are peppered fairly evenly throughout. Andreas' primarily screamed vocals are excellent; you can really hear the JR Ewing influence here, but the lyrics swing between moments of real intelligence and insight "I guess this world is just a tragedy to those who feel, but a comedy to those who think" and tired cliché "I'd rather be fired by a firm than by life itself". There is some appeal to the honest, conversational style that they are delivered in – you get a real feel of thoughts naturalistically being thrown down on paper as soon as they enter his head, but this sincerity sometimes feels out of place with the more pretentious sections of dialogue.
It appears that they may have made a small mistake with the track listing, because not only does 'Metronome Heartbeats [are fashionable]' appear in it's allocated slot (track 3), but it also returns not once but twice as tracks 7 and 8. This fact is made all the more interesting when you consider that according to the inlay there should only be 6 songs in total. Stuck for enough songs to fill your album? No matter – just repeat your best song 3 times! An interesting technique to say the least...
Ignoring this unbelievable display of amateurism, 'Life In Coloured Squares' isn't too bad an effort; especially considering this is their debut album. The songs may tend to fizzle out in the second half, and those Iron Maiden guitars have to go, but Worlds Between Us do display a reasonable amount of talent that suggests this debut is merely the beginning.