It’s all about the accent. If it wasn’t for the broad Yorkshire twang that bleeds through in the vocals, you’d easily think Eat Defeat were the latest pop-punk wunderkind to drag their Vans and skateboards out of SoCal. And that’s real testament to how good their new EP ‘Tide And Time’ is.
At this point, discussing originality in pop-punk is pretty much a lost cause, as there isn’t any. Eat Defeat don’t do anything to change that – this EP is six tracks of the same rousing, sunshine-imbued fare we’ve all become well-accustomed to by now – but it’s so bracing and carried out with such gusto that it manages to inch ahead of the pack. The likes of ‘DIYTanic’ and ‘The North Remembers’ are particularly strong examples of this, both brimming with chunky hooks and copious amounts of bounce.
What’s more, the pace never dips either. Where most new pop-punk bands feel it necessary to display the full range of their skills by tacking on a wet, whiny ballad to the end of their EPs, there’s no such faffing around on here. Eat Defeat pack their EP with nothing but insatiable hooks, and it pays off magnificently – this is the sort of stuff that would’ve slotted seamlessly on Warped Tour in its heyday, or any manner of Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater soundtracks.
There’s very little to find fault with on ‘Tide And Time’, as every single measure has been executed to near perfection. It’s suitably beefy, it’s got hooks coming out of its ears – even the release date for the very start of summer couldn’t have been any more perfectly timed. This is a true feat in a genre that’s dying for a change of pace, and one that shouldn’t go unnoticed.
4/5
‘Tide And Time’ by Eat Defeat is released on June 10th on Umlaut Records.
Eat Defeat links: Facebook|Twitter|Bandcamp
Words by Luke Nuttall (@nuttall_luke)
