Old State – The ‘Perspectives’ EP.
Old State – St. Louis, Missouri, USA.
Photography credit: Jessie Mckee Photography.
For our previous work on Old State – Click Here.
Pop-Punk is genre that comes and goes. It’s a genre that can often become stale or banal and bands often struggle for relevancy. However, it’s also a genre that when used as a base or simply constituting a band’s roots, can produce far more than the stereotype its name implies.
Old State’s latest EP is a follow up to 2014s debut EP Leaving Home, a release that marked sonic proof of these diversifications and progressions.
The Pop-Punk, Post-Hardcore, Emo and Alternative Rock crossover the above showcased has morphed as the band have morphed, producing something in the release your about to digest that almost marks the band as a different unit in some respects but in others, simply a unit subject to maturity.
\\Perspectives//
Old State have always done dulcet well and the opening instrumentation greets you with another hard hitting, heartfelt metaphor for a heart and soul trapped in the dark. As a track, its as long as it needs to be and adds a welcome honesty to what your about to hear.
‘Porch Swing’ actually changes things up. Its upbeat Pop-Punk starting point is welcome in the sense that pace suits Old State but it actually contrasts a little too strongly. The track is redeemed however with its slower and heavier latter parts with David Fernandez’s bass-work and Aaron Buchanan’s vocals coming to prominence.
‘Shorts Guy’ sends me back to my comment on Leaving Home sounding akin to Polar Bear Club with the heartfelt and melodic pop-Post-Hardcore wearing its heart on its sleeve.
‘Perspectives’ handles its burden well in standing as the title track, continuing with the hard hitting and relatable lyrics emanating from that heart still on the sleeve.
‘I lie behind my woven sheets my eyes were focused, close to black. My mind’s a wreck inside of me with hopeful thoughts of coming back.’
By this point on the release, whatever the inspiration behind the intense feeling this EP is clearly the result of is truly immersing. Old State have matured lyrically, improved their skills as musicians and produced an EP less intense in stylistic but more so in it’s aesthetic and honesty.
The closer, ‘Church Doors’ is the slowest and harshest in reality as it laments a fallen friend. The song is actually very beautiful in its own haunting way and although clearly painful in content, closes one of the most “black and white” and real EPs I have heard this year.
Find Old State below:
