Review Summary: Tonight Alive look out, there is a new Sydney female pop-punk band coming to steal your spotlight.
Highways are a 5 piece pop-punk band from Sydney, Australia. Their sound has been done a million times before, but damn is this not an impressive EP from a very promising new band. With the success of their contemporaries, another Aussie band Tonight Alive, there has been an influx of new bands popping up all around Australia. At the top of this list is Highways.
The first song ''Believe'' showcases vocalist Sarah Buckley's powerful pipes, although they are very alike of Jenna MacDougall of Tonight Alive, her pitch and tone are very impressive, and maybe even more powerful than Jenna's and even Hayley Williams . The vocals are the obvious highlight, with the guitars and drums doing an admirable job of keeping up with Sarah's superb vocals.
In ''Hero'' it is much the same with Sarah's big voice, being showcased and blasted into our ears. ''Who Am I?'' is the album highlight with a brilliant and catchy chorus with Sarah's vocals on full show, and at her best on this song. ''Light Us Up'' is not a bad song, but doesn't live up to the previous one. The title track is a great ending to the EP. Here, Sarah's vocals shine. The instrumentation of the band is good, with guitarists Kerrod Williams and Nick Laurie doing a nice job writing some respectable riffs and drummer John Buckley playing some great beats and having nice timing. The production of this EP is very good for such a young unknown band with the vocals very high, but not forgetting about the guitar and drums, the bass is also noticeable, which is unusual for a pop-punk band. Although there are a few faults. The obvious one being that there isn't too much variety, with some songs being very similar. The aim of these guys was to put out an enjoyable catchy 5 songs which they have achieved.
All in all, this is an admirable 2nd EP from 5 young kids barely even known here in Australia. If you give these guys a listen, you may even be surprised as much as l was.
