Italy doesn’t exactly have a rich history of quality alternative music (okay, maybe Lacuna Coil up to a point) but Years And Miles have set out to rectify that. The ten tracks on their debut ‘Luck In Life’ take all sorts of cues from ’90s skate-punk and melodic hardcore, and manage to thrust them into the 21st century fairly well.

Opener ‘Sick Sick Sick’ is one of the best songs Strung Out never wrote, while ‘Steal The Waves’ injects some truly lovely shots of melody and the more mid-tempo ‘Inside Out’ is a nice change of pace.

Other than the latter track though, it’s very much a one-paced affair, and it gets incredibly tiring very quickly. Couple this with a fairly sloppy vocal performance from Michele Capelli and you’ve got an album that errs more towards ‘alright’ than ‘great’.

It’s definitely a stable foundation for Years And Miles to build on in the future, and one that they’ll undoubtedly be able to capitalise on. And even on its own, as an exercise in hero worship and nostalgia, it’s not half bad.

3/5

‘Luck In Life’ by Years And Miles is released on 9th October on Disconnect Disconnect Records.

Years And Miles links: Website|Facebook

Words by Luke Nuttall (@nuttall_luke)