Last Harbour "Hold Fast, Pioneer" (Tongue Master Records 2005) This is depressing! That's not a critical comment, just a statement of fact. Doom and gloom is the prevailing theme, and there is no respite. Track three, for example, opens with the line "we always said, we'd be better off dead" ! Almost every song is in a minor key, and most are taken at dirge like tempo. Nothing intrinsically wrong with that, but if you choose that route, it has to be convincing. This misses the mark much of the time. The solemn vocal stylings of Kevin Craig hold the attention for a track or two, but the monotony and lack of variation soon have the listener craving a change of mood. "Atmospheric" and "cinematic" are the words that the band use to describe themselves. It is easy to see what they are trying to achieve, and in a song such as " Johnny Row ", they just about carry it off. For most of the time, however, this is very heavy going, with pretentiousness never far from the surface.
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