Review Summary: Listening to Bright Grey is very much like riding a mechanical bull: it’s furious, relentless, fun, and it goes by in a blur.
Have you got a severe case of A.D.D.? Maybe you’re narcoleptic and you can’t stay awake for more than twenty minutes? Are the bombs going to drop soon and you want to listen to one album in it’s entirety before you get blown to bits? Well then, my dear A.D.D./narcoleptic/paranoid friend, I have one recommendation for you: The Steal’s second and final album,
Bright Grey. Offering a quick burst of melodic hardcore punk,
Bright Grey might not push any boundaries, but boy, it is ever fun to listen to.
The first thing you’ll notice about
Bright Grey is it’s length: the album is just 17 minutes split into 14 tracks, meaning that a handful of songs don’t even reach the minute mark. The result is a burst of furious hardcore punk with melodic elements: sharp basslines, swirling drums, high-octane guitars and hoarse yelling that not only keeps but captivates your attention. The production is bright and clean, and The Steal just embody the genre so perfectly that you’ll want to experience the same 17 minutes over and over again.
Although it may sound like you’re listening to one, whole 17 minute song, there are actually subtle variations from track to track. Beyond the songs that just offer an explosion of hardcore punk, for example, there is the bouncy, melodic “Disconnected”, the progressive, building “Repeat”, and the important messages in the cautionary tale of “Dave Gets Mad” (which is the absolute truth, so don’t get me fired up if you know what’s good for you). If you take the time to digest the whole 17 minutes, you’ll find that every track has its own good idea, and you’ll eventually end up finding a couple of favourite tracks among the bunch.
There are some faults, however: I can’t really give them a lot of merit in terms of originality, and I wouldn’t have minded a slightly longer run-time. But the usual sound and the short runtime is most of the charm of
Bright Grey, as the sound is so spot-on in terms of appeal, captivity and character that it can be called a truly great release. It’s great to see the bands like The Steal embrace what punk is all about
: a simple, straight-forward embodiment of aggression, fun and passion.
Bright Grey, despite being an awfully short offering, captures a lot of enthusiasm of the genre and is an absolute blast to listen to.
