If it were 2004, The Wedding would be absolutely massive. I have no doubt in this, as they remind me a lot of Hawthorne Heights, Silverstein and other mid 00’s Victory Records bands. Tooth & Nail have put out some absolutely great albums by mewithoutyou, sainthood reps and underOATH, so how this is so far off the mark is a mystery. On ‘No Direction’ Arizona’s The Wedding show their influences very clearly, and for me, it either doesn’t work, is grating or I’ve heard it done better by those original bands when this style of music was huge.

Opener ‘No Direction’ flooded me with nostalgia for the days when boys wore lots of eyeliner and stole jeans from their sisters wardrobes. For what it is, it’s alright, the band are skilled musicians, and the singer has a good voice, however by track 4 I’d had enough of the nostalgia, and just wanted to turn it off. 

The record carries on at a similar pace, throughout until track seven, a turgid acoustic ballad, that kicks into full gear about half way through with some harmonies in an attempt to sound epic, however, as I stated previously, we’ve heard this before and heard it better.

By track 8 (‘Kill Any Excuse’) and The Wedding kick into what I can only liken to an intro that reminds me of Rage Against The Machine, complete with “OH” chants, it’s just not original, and thats the problem, everything on offer here, is something we’ve heard before. Tracks nine to twelve tended to blend together for me, I just wasn’t getting it with this record, but maybe I’m not the target audience, I guess not anyway. Someone, somewhere will like this, just not me.

2/5

‘No Direction’ by The Wedding is out now on Tooth & Nail.

The Wedding links: Website|Facebook|Twitter

Words by Ryan Clayton