SINGLE REVIEW: Sadness & Complete Disappointment – Fun EP (self-released)
Sadness & Complete Disappointment are a new three-piece from the Midlands who combine gloomy, metal-tinged gothic-rock with some fairly bleak views of the world and their place in it.
What’s undeniable is that even though this is their debut release, lead vocalist and drummer Esme, bassist and harmoniser Beka and guitarist Kit write big tunes and are hugely accomplished musicians.
They only released their first single late last year, and haven’t played a live show yet, but the four songs on this EP, which they have slowly drip-fed into our consciousness, make it feel like they have been around much longer.
Taking their cues from the likes of Sonic Youth, Placebo, Smashing Pumpkins and Hole, they take the gloomiest of ’90s grunge and turn up the bleakness and sense of hopelessness.
Opening track Monotony is a bleak slice of doom metal-tinged gothic rock about being stuck inside the same four walls, day after day – which pretty much sums up how the past year has felt as we’ve lurched in and out of lockdown.
The riffs are big, the drums bludgeoning and the bass throbs, and it sets the bar high for what’s about to follow. Esme’s vocals are powerful – almost operatic – at times, but have an ethereal quality at others, and it all makes for a deeply claustrophic opener.
It’s followed by Oh, Rapture, which starts quietly, but is soon livened up by shards of jagged guitar, and it’s another slice of spooky, gloom-laden grunge.
Survivor’s Guilt is an anti-love song, about the desperation of not wanting to be alone, regardless of the cost to your happiness, even though you know you’ll get hurt in the end. Wrapping things up is Status, the first song they released, about the rotten core of the patriarchy and how pre-determined status is so prevalent in our culture.
Taken as a whole, this ironically-titled EP is a bold mission statement by the band, laying down how they see life through misery-tinted lenses. It’s full of promise, and I look forward to seeing where they take this next.
