Review Summary: A new blend of genres makes for a very intriguing listen, these guys will get you hooked in no time.
Most of my time here on Sputnik has been occupied with lurking around trying to find new bands to stimulate my need for an ever-growing catalog of great music, and with the help of Sputnikmusic I have found bands that i both enjoy and some of which I wish I had never damaged my ears with (BrokenCyde I'm looking at you). Recently on one of my musical spelunking adventures I found this young band from Texas and figured I'd give them a shot.
Coming into their Myspace page I was a little reluctant about hearing a "spoken-word" band thinking it would just be another shameless knockoff of mewithoutYou or La Dispute, so with a few reservations I waited for "Automated Exchanges" to being streaming through my speakers. Automated starts off with a damn catchy riff with some good ear-candy delay layered behind it which caught me off guard. As the song went on and I heard the different influences in their sound I began to realize that this was not just a less than perfect carbon copy of better bands, but rather a unique band pushing forward with some very interesting ideas.
Vocally, Old Men Die In New Suits (OMDINS), utilizes both a screamer and a "spoken-word" vocalist. The three songs on their music player showed off some different tactics they employ from cutting through the wall of sound with their voices combined, trading off vocal duties in more punkish parts, and two eerie sounding clean parts with just spoken word. Both the screamer (Ian) and spoken word vocalist (Cody) make for an entertaining listen as you can tell the conviction and emotion saturating the atmosphere they create. Neither vocal style here is used as a gimmick but merely used in a way that makes sense and brings the whole thing together.
After reading Ironing's review of this album you'd expect to hear the noticeable click-clack automated sounds of poorly done electronic drums; for me however that was not the case I could hardly even tell it wasn't live drums. I think the fact of knowing they aren't real is a little bit of a downer seeing as how everyone in the band is good at what they do and present a clean, flowing sound so it would of been nice to hear what the actual drummer is capable of. Listening to their recordings I was reminded a little of Defeater's Lost Ground EP and A Hope for Home's Realis album, some might not agree with the Defeater comparison but just listen closely, you'll find it.
A band with such emotion in their music usually tends to have a story behind them so before writing this review I did some of my expert stalking and found out as much as I could about these guys from their various media outlets to see what they were all about and was very surprised to find out that before this they had released another EP that sounded like something Rise Records would of jumped on in a heartbeat, thankfully the band has done what their EP title suggests and evolved into a newer, more exciting sound. Give these guys a listen and you'll be hooked, guaranteed.
Here are the two best links I found for them:
Reverbnation = http://www.reverbnation.com/omdins
Facebook = http://www.facebook.com/pages/Old-Men-Die-In-New-Suits/204432036867
