Polina are a screamo bad from Newfoundland, Canada. Bonehouse is a five piece punk band from Dundee, UK. Kaddish are a three piece screamo band also from Dundee. And Todos Caeran are a five piece screamo band from Edmonton, Calgary.
The first half of this album is quite excellent. I am saddened to see on the last.fm page for Polina a post by one of the dude's saying the band is done and this is their last release. If that's true these are two solid songs to go out on, keeping with the sound that Polina grew into.
The second band making their debut outside of demo's is Bonehouse. They fit into the larger aesthetic of this whole album which flows quite well, while still maintaining their own identity. I especially like the breakdowen in Paper Thin Lungs, I am going to dive into this band's discography shortly.
After four great songs by two great bands the album unfortunately takes a bit of a slide. Kaddish is a band that has been around for a while, they put out a split with Wolf 359 in 2008. I can under stand why some people seem to really like Kaddish but for me the ingredients never come together like they should. There's nothing wrong with these songs they just never really click.
Which brings me to Todos Caeran. Todos Caeran are an awesome band. Their brand of screamo is epic and reaching and very rarely fails to just completely sweep me away in the tide of the song they are hammering out. But these songs, for some reason, just fail to ignite for me. These songs may not be my favourite on this album but they deliver the same solid punch I expect.
This is a really solid album, there are no bad tracks and all the bands are firing on all cylinders constantly. But for me the first half is the half that I keep coming back to.
