 
Northpaw are a five piece band from Hampshire
who formed towards the end of 2011 and are influenced
by the likes of Glassjaw, Thrice, Norma Jean,
The Bled and many others, since their formation
they have been touring across the UK in support
of their self titled debut EP and now they are
gearing up to release their new EP ‘Trepidation’.
The EP opens with ‘Extinction’ and
straight away these guys throw everything into
the mix from roaring vocals, chunky guitar riffs,
pounding drum beats, huge basslines and they generally
do all this at what feels like 100 miles per hour
as they smash their way through this perfect opening
track which runs for nearly 5minutes.
‘Face Needs’ carries on pretty well
from the opening track opening in a more melodic
way yet moments later going down the hardcore
route with a mad flurry of screams and killer
guitar riffs, as the song progresses the Charlie
Grout-Smith and Spencer Huet lay down some amazing
vocals as the vocals change from melodic to raw
screams with the pace and sound of the intense
instrumental work.
‘Habitus’ comes in at full throttle
as Northpaw jam away in an extremely aggressive
way, seriously if you thought the opening track
of the EP opened in an aggressive way then you
have not heard anything until you get to ‘Habitus’
as it is a beast of a track and easily stands
out as the biggest, most aggressive progressive
track on the EP, it’s not just the instrumental
work that packs a punch but the gang vocals as
powerful and aggressive.
‘Oil, Gratulerar’ continues the aggressive
streak, yet throughout the 4minutes that the song
runs for it goes through many different twists
and turns whilst managing to keep pleasing the
ears throughout.
The EP closes with ‘Artificial Respiration’
a song which starts off mellow, gets extremely
aggressive towards the middle and fades out towards
the end in a dreamy kind of way.
If you are yet to hear of Northpaw then I suggest
that you either head over to their Facebook to
check out a couple of songs and when ‘Trepidation’
is released on the 28th January 2013 head over
to Itunes to download it as it is a beast of an
EP which leaves this listener needing to check
Northpaw out on the live circuit.
5/5
Review By Trigger
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