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
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