Review Summary: not so noisy actually
There's something great about bands formed by music students, be it as a passion project or a prospect of a future career as soon as university is over. I don't know which one is the case for sage and I'm not sure they do either, however, whatever these individuals decide to do with their talent this project is an excellent first step.
There is always some promise with people that not only study music and music production but also get pure enjoyment from picking up their instruments and jamming out. "equilibrium" is the bands first EP after their previously released track (not present here) "Strange" that was my first time listening to them. There's very little information about the band, besides the "noisy, dublin-based quartet" description, however there's definitely an alternative rock, post-grunge feeling about this EP specifically.
The vocals are definitely a standout, it's always fresh to have a female front in a rock band, but even more so when a variety of styles is displayed, from spoken words, to beautiful clean harmonies, to pretty raw screams. Some very nice riffs, specially in levitate, which is in my opinion the strongest track here, as well as a nice attention as to letting the vocals take the lead. But all in all a great understanding of song writing, the choruses are pretty much full blown rock, catchy but both grandiose and raw. This rawness might also be a consequence of the production that is very rough around the edges and does diminish the overall quality of the EP, despite not being enough of a problem to detract from my enjoyment.
There are no obvious influences, in a sense that a band doesn't sound like band X, but instead feel very much like they've found their sound in a genre, which is always a good and honestly refreshing for a first outing. Overall it's a solid first EP by a group of friends that feels like they're having a lot of fun but most importantly understand how to make good music.
