{"id":19724,"date":"2014-08-26T09:30:24","date_gmt":"2014-08-26T09:30:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/alreadyheard.com\/staging\/album-review-astpai-burden-calls\/"},"modified":"2018-03-17T15:08:47","modified_gmt":"2018-03-17T15:08:47","slug":"album-review-astpai-burden-calls","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alreadyheard.com\/staging\/album-review-astpai-burden-calls\/","title":{"rendered":"Album Review: Astpai – Burden Calls"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Now this is going to make it sound as if I\u2019ve been living on the moon for the past decade, but reviewing this album was the first time I had ever heard Astpai<\/strong>. This is despite them having been a band for twelve years, this being their fifth full length record, and the fact that they\u2019ve toured the UK extensively and almost always with bands I would normally go to see.<\/p>\n

I have heard people afford the Austrian four-piece glowing praise and so got stuck into \u2018Burden Calls\u2019<\/em> with great anticipation. Opening track \u2018Single Use\u2019 <\/em>did not disappoint, its lightning fast melodic hardcore bouncing haphazardly off the walls like A Wilhelm Scream but if anything with a harder edge as the song explodes into a furious, Dan Yemin-esque vocal refrain of \u201ctalkin\u2019 bout degeneration!\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

Come the next track, the sneering attitude is quickly extinguished and everything gets much more posi and upbeat, a change which actually becomes the general trend of the album. This in itself is fine and Astpai<\/strong>\u00a0are perfectly capable of pulling off the style as easily as they can the nastier stuff. But we reach third track \u2018Out\u2019 <\/em>and suddenly things very much take a turn for the worse.<\/p>\n

I always used to criticise Belvedere, back when they were cool (yeah okay, we\u2019re talking quite a long time ago) for being all bells and whistles and no ballsacks. They had plenty of technical ability and knew how to make pretty twiddling sounds and make their song structures fit in interesting ways around the beat and generally be all elaborate \u2013 but they didn\u2019t really have any songs. Their tracks were like fireworks, all very colourful but easily forgotten.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Astpai<\/strong>\u00a0definitely start suffering from a nasty case of “Belvedere Syndrome”, with both \u2018Out\u2019<\/em> and \u2018After All\u2019<\/em> just sounding like elaborate intros that go on far too long, followed by the song abruptly ending just as you were wondering when the good bit was going to kick in. Not all the songs let you down in this fashion, but there are plenty of others which seem pretty flash on the surface, yet when you boil them down to the actual riffs and melodies, it\u2019s actually rather tedious.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not always the case though. \u2018Departure\u2019 <\/em>is absolutely fantastic hard-edged pop-punk which reminds me of All in a very good way, and (ironically given my previous criticism) also has a totally blinding riff on the intro. Then you\u2019ve got \u2018Resignation\u2019, <\/em>a fast-as-hell 45 second blast of hardcore that very much goes to show when Astpai<\/strong>\u00a0keep things simple, rather than try and over-elaborate, they sound fantastic. I\u2019ve made that comment in reviews so many times I feel like I\u2019ve got d\u00e9j\u00e0 vu.<\/p>\n

I feel pretty disappointed that I didn\u2019t like this because Astpai<\/strong>\u00a0seem like some seriously hard-working, committed dudes who have plenty of heart and love doing what they do. I\u2019m pretty sure this means they\u2019ve also learned to deflect criticism. But I just couldn\u2019t feel like \u2018Burden Calls\u2019 <\/em>had anything like enough real tracks, enough killer tunes to make people want to go crazy. And that\u2019s what this is all about.<\/p>\n

2\/5<\/p>\n

‘Burden Calls’<\/em> by Astpai<\/strong> is out now on Ass Card <\/strong>and Jump Start Records<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Astpai<\/strong> links: Website<\/a>|Facebook<\/a>|Twitter<\/a><\/p>\n

Words by Alex Phelan (@listen_to_alex<\/a>)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Now this is going to make it sound as if I\u2019ve been living on the moon for the past decade, but reviewing this album was the first time I had ever heard Astpai. This is despite them having been a band for twelve years, this being their fifth full length record, and the fact that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":19725,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[15,8181],"tags":[5879,8589,4242,8591,1484],"class_list":["post-19724","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-album-reviews","category-post","tag-album-reviews","tag-ass-card-records","tag-astpai","tag-burden-calls","tag-jump-start-records"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nAlbum Review: Astpai - Burden Calls - Already Heard Staging<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Now this is going to make it sound as if I\u2019ve been living on the moon for the past decade, but reviewing this album was the first time I had ever heard\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"noindex, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_GB\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Album Review: Astpai - 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