Road To Kansas – The Contract With Ghosts
Hailing from Saarbrücken in Germany, Road To Kansas have knocked out a debut album of proficient, yet formulaic emo fare full of melodic verses followed by the compulsory angry, shouty bits.
The album starts promisingly enough with 'You Are Sex But We Are The City', but once the screaming starts it soon becomes apparent that Road To Kansas have little in the way of individuality. The rest of the album proceeds in similar fashion and, to be fair to the band, the songwriting is certainly acceptable, even downright contagious in places ('Dynamite-Man' in particular stands out), but their lack of originality or distinctive style means they'll likely struggle to rise above a scene already overloaded with this kind of music.
"The Contract With Ghosts" shows that Road To Kansas are certainly dab-hands at emo/metalcore, unfortunately, however well performed, the entire album sounds overly familiar- it's a perfectly acceptable example of the genre, but there's nothing that sets it apart from the innumerable other bands already playing this kind of stuff.
Hopefully they can find their own voice in the future and worry less about what other bands are doing. If they can do this, whilst retaining their undisputable knack for writing catchy hooks, then Road To Kansas will be a far more worthwhile prospect. As it stands at present, with "The Contract With Ghosts" Road to Kansas are going to have a long, hard journey to stand out from the crowd.