:(

:( or :) – That is the Question

When a band name themselves after the sad face emoticon and play the Myspace stage at a primarily metal festival, there is not much hope of what is to come and as the set starts with some rather shaky vocals my face too turns in to a sad one.

With whiney vocals that half of the time seem unable to keep up with the rest of the music it leaves a lot to be desired. Whilst, fundamentally, there is little wrong with the rest of the band on a technical level the overall sound comes across as somewhat confused resulting in a fusion of disco-emo and Nintendo-core reminiscent of Horse the Band.

Despite all this, on some dance-fuelled emo level this works with a lot of the crowd that are packed in to the Myspace/Gibson stage. It's not amazing music, it's not really anything spectacular but it certainly fills a void in the Nintendo-core genre that has previously been solely filled with a couple of obscure bands.

If you're not a fan of slightly screechy vocals that often sound like they're being played over a Super Mario soundtrack then you'll probably going to be joining me and putting your own :( on, however for some you will end up very much :) or possibly even :D.