27 May 2013

Unearthed Reviews: Dead Rabbits. One and a half stars.

| Barcham
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Dead Rabbits

Once more we come to that hour where I must draw a random number and compare it to my rapidly diminishing list of ACT bands with interesting names that I’ve never heard of before.

Yes, it’s Unearthed Reviews time.

Today the RNG gave me a 9, which meant I would be reviewing Dead Rabbits.

I quickly jumped onto Google and typed in “unearthed dead rabbits”, then I thought the better of it and navigated there carefully from the main Unearthed page.

Close call.

Dead Rabbits identify themselves as a pop/rock group, but have failed to provide either bio nor band picture, making my desire to judge them for things that are not their music rather difficult.

Ahh well let’s listen to their music.

They have three songs available, the first is called Rocket Ship.

FULL DISCLAIMER: I love rocket ships.

Rocket Ship starts out pleasingly. It sounds cheesy, 80’s cheesy. There’s a bit of pop, a bit of kitsch, a slight glam vibe. So far so good.

Then the vocals start.

Oh god oh god what happened. Were these vocals recorded into a tin can during a storm. I have no idea if the vocalist is any good, because the recording quality to so terrible it actually hurts me to listen to. Ow ow ow. Damn. This track showed promise, but I just can’t do it. I don’t even know what the connection with rocket ships was.

The second song is Little One.

Little One, sounds fine. Just fine. Start here, skip Rocket Ship.

Little One is reminiscent of the 80’s being reminiscent of the 50’s and is a lovely piece of fake nostalgia. A power-ballad-esque love song that’s not afraid to leap from trope to trope both musically and lyrically, Little One hits everything it needs to hit. That is a good thing, and the result is a lot of fun.

The Dark is the third track. I had a lot of enthusiasm going into it after enjoying the second song so much.

There’s a really really sharp hiss though the whole track. It starts before anything else and keeps playing afterwards. It’s awful and that’s a shame. The Dead Rabbits seem to have found another 80’s sound to write a love letter to, and I would like to try and enjoy it, but I just can’t get over the hiss.

Sort your recording out Dead Rabbits. I’m not some obsessed audiophile that needs to hear great quality recording to like a band. Far from it.

I just have a need for recordings to not ACTIVELY CAUSE ME PAIN.

I would rate this much higher if it weren’t for the quality. I imagine there may be better recordings out there. They’re probably great live.

None of that matters though.

Unearthed Reviews are about reviewing the tracks an artist or band put on Triple j Unearthed, and two out of three of these tracks are unlistenable.

One and a half stars.

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