6

A Small Victory

A Small Victory come from small town Georgia in the United States, and they sound like it. They played on last summer's Warped Tour and they sound like it. They grew up skateboarding and recorded this CD, 'El Camino', in California and they sound like it... do you get where I'm going with this?

This band sound like they belong on Drive Thru records, if you don't understand what I mean, the Drive Thru roster consists of pretty boy, young males who can churn out emo-pop punk hits, and build a loyal following of 15-17 year old fans whilst doing so, never ceasing touring the vast land that is America. This is fine if you can stomach young guys whining about their lives, but I can't for a whole record. There are two stand out tracks from this CD, the first and the last. The first song 'Limousines and Cheap Cigars' reminds me of a mixture of The Plain White Tees and Jimmy Eat World, maybe with even a hint of The Wedding Present, it has a solid chorus, its catchy and it isn't over the top sickly sweet, unlike the aptly titled penultimate track 'Farewell Capeside'. For those of you who don’t know Capeside is the town in which late teen drama Dawson's Creek was set, and it was all about angst, hormones, life in a small town, and meaningless teen drama; all things this band seemingly relate themselves to. This song is far, far to soppy, it's acoustic, and if the singer had a more distinctive voice maybe they could have pulled it off but it just seems to veer into meaningless droning after the first few lines are sung. If you want to hear a good version of this, go get an early Dashboard Confessional CD, at least he's whining about something that is somewhat meaningful and relevant.

The only other song worth mentioning in this review is the last 'James Dean B-side' it has the same semi redeeming qualities as the first track, it's more memorable than the rest of the songs on the CD, that are merely meaningless fillers with track names such as 'Otis', 'Stabbing Tree' and 'Hell Bent on Heavens Smile'. All these songs are empty, meaningless and they all sound the same, in fact after you reach track 6 'Sirens Over Sinclare' it all seems to morph into the same song. It's all so simple, and you get the feeling of 'I've heard this song a million times before', it's radio friendly, and I bet your teenage little sister will love it.

If you like bands like The Starting Line, Halifax or really anyone else on Drive Thru you'd probably like this, perhaps even if you happen to be a whiney teen, who feels there is a void of emo-pop punk in your life. It's not terrible, but it certainly isn't worth listening to over the bands A Small Victory have clearly drawn their influences from.