Ben Diesel / The Stars Go Out and The ‘Get Splitfaced’ Split.

Ben Diesel – St. Louis, Missouri, USA.
The Stars Go Out – St. Charles, Missouri, USA.

For our previous work on Ben Diesel – Click Here.

Ben Diesel are a Pop-Punk band from St. Louis, Missouri, a band we have seen before and a band that quite impressively took a number of non-Pop-Punk musical stylings from here, there and everywhere and managed to form them into an amalgamation that actually still managed to find itself on the Pop-Punk spectrum.

The Stars Go Out on the other hand hail from St. Charles and themselves take clear Pop-Punk and Punk affiliation with classic dare-I-sat Southern-esque American-Country influence layered in and around an Alternative Rock sound you can’t quite put your finger on.

The latter of the two begin with the a track very typical of the amalgamation of the listed above with strong tones sounding mature and rounded but still flirting with youthful exuberance via upbeat Pop-Punk guitars encroaching on this maturity in a different rendition of the “I hate this town” never-ender.

‘The Way That I See it’ is a good opener number but carries the majority of the strength in its redeeming up-tempo melodies. ‘Aliens (She Believes)’ is far more rounded and feels more at home while ‘The Tide’ takes more of the classic Punk-rooted aspects of the band’s sound to the forefront in a track akin to the earlier work of The Gaslight Anthem.

‘The Tide’ indeed wastes no time in following the hook-laden guitars laid down by the band’s first contribution and actually marks a far better balanced and comfortable band and a high-point for their half of the release

The final track from The Stars Go Out finds us again wishing for more of this engaging and more driven sound. With the slow building intro you are left in an air of ambiguity and it is again not until the stellar lead guitar-work begins to contribute just before the second verse that the track begins to settle and make more sense.  That’s not to say that The Stars Go Out have provided a bad track rather one that can’t decide whether it wants to focus on sing-alongs are engaging musical backing.

Ben Diesel begin with a guitar tone that matches the flow and style of the release thus far with vocals strongly in-style with their split-mates before the band almost seamlessly segue into far more Pop-Punk-led verse with a melodic guitar-line just as well executed as their compadres on the flip-side.

‘An Open Letter To Jason Tate’ is Weezer-filtered Pop-Punk at its best with Ben Diesel’s more youthful sound taking point as you’d expect if you have crossed sonic paths with them before. ‘Indulgences’ is clever as it makes-fun of self-isolation and a life gone wrong within the context of itself in another mid-tempo Pop-Punk classic where Ben Diesel do what they do best, make fun but still make a point you can take away if you so wish.

‘Pinehurst’ closes an EP that sits majortively as easy listening. Get Splitfaced flirts with the upbeat and puts most of its energy into producing an eight-track release designed to chill-to after a long hard day or to provide a soundtrack to that day off where you are far too exhausted to do anything of note. The flow of the split is something of note too, as is the production and each time your find yourself listening to it you find yourself melding with it a little further.

Find the bands and split below:

• Ben Diesel: Facebook, Twitter, bandcamp, Spotify.
• The Stars Go Out: Facebook, Twitter, Spotify.
• The Split – Here.

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