Album Review

Dive Dive - PotentialDive Dive – Potential

Dive Dive are a band composed of 3 full time members of Frank Turner’s band and perform a kind of punk rock/pop punk style of music, more pop punk with a rock edge. This is their third album recorded during a period of time where Frank Turner wasn’t touring or recording. This band have been going for a fair long time and have been criminally overlooked due to lack of shows because of other commitments of the members.

Upon first listen there is an instant comparison within the vocals, very high and distinctive in pitch and remind me of Coheed and Cambria’s vocalist in places with the very distinctive pitch. The first track “Mr 10%” is very interesting; its riffy then kicks into this heavy rock flowing section thats shortly lived before they kils it dead in favour of a soft light chord sequence to sing over but then gradually when then chorus comes up the heavy guitars kick back in again and this continues throughout the song. Its different especially with the type of vocals lay over the top of all this. The following song however “The Alarum” is more of a heavy rock meets indie kind of scenario going on, it’s definitely got a groove in it mixed alongside this strange combination of clashing genres, it’s very nice, “The Point Is” also takes this style and makes for a good listen.

After these 2 songs the band sacrifices that heavy rock infusion that I liked and favour the clean guitars and Indie influence. I appreciate good indie music I really do but that wasn’t the point this band had something different and nice going on here and they seemed to lose their way after the first 2 songs. Some of the songs following this style aren’t bad though, I still like “Your Call Is Important”, “Liar” and “Damage Control” because they are bouncy and fun to get into. Other songs though that aren’t fun and bouncy but instead sound generic and stale; “The You in Me” because I’ve heard many riffs like that before yet the rest of the song is alright, “Potential” which is a minute long and the vocals on it are a bit annoying if I’m honest and “Pod People” which I’m sure I’ve heard parts of that somewhere before.

The album is only 36 minutes in length; all the songs are really short and feel like they could have been longer. It’s got its ups and downs and this is my opinion but during some of the songs I got fed up of the whiney sound in the singer’s voice it just starts to make me slightly cringe. It’s not a bad album and has “Potential” excuse the play on the album title but it does for future releases I just think they need to decide on a direction and stick to it.

3/5

Review by James Webb

 Band Members

Jamie Stuart
Ben Lloyd
Nigel Powell
Tarrant Anderson
 Track Listing
1. Mr 10%
2. The Alarum
3. Damage Control
4. Liar
5. The You in Me
6. Wherewithal
7. Ape Like Me
8. Collapse From The Hurt
9. The point is
10. Your Call is Important
11. Pod People
12. Let’s Swap Places
13. Potential
 Band Related Links
Dive Dive Myspace
 Review Score Code
- Top Cheese
- Brilliant
- Pretty damn good
- Ok I guess
- What Was That?