There comes a time in every metal kid's life when they feel the need to sample the dubious delights of alternative music genres. For me it came via the gift of a copy of Dinosaur Jr's Bug coupled with an impulse purchase of Parliament's Motor Booty Affair. My band had to suffer a sudden shift in my guitar style, from fat chunky riffs to choppy guitar licks dripping in wah-wah pedal all delivered in the slackest of attitudes possible.
I don't think it would be unfair to suggest that Scrim started life as metalheads, the guitar solos that fiddle their way across these songs point to at least someone in the band still being in thrall to their Iron Maiden and AC/DC albums.
However, to counteract this, someone else (and we're looking at you, vocalist Alek McGovern) owns at least one Stereophonics album. Ordinarily this would find us starting to petition the government regarding the reinstatement of the death penalty, but in this case we'll put the political agitation on hold for a little while. Scrim manage to retain a little of their dirtier, balls out rockist tendencies whilst also managing to make each of these songs a little pop delight. It's a difficult trick, just ask Stereophonics as they can't seem to get the rock meets pop thing right. Scrim can, and if they keep up writing songs like this we'll undoubtedly being hearing a lot more from them.
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