Disc Deconstruction: Meet/Pause Cluster Cascade EP

I always have my fears when I’m checking out new material.  Especially when I become really invested in a band.  There’s a fear that the new music just won’t resonate with me the way the old stuff did.  There’s a bit of a “getting to know you” period (I like to call this the game of who the fuck are you) that most bands’ new stuff evokes.  These feelings and fear where no different with Meet/Pause’s new Cluster Cascade EP.  So go to www.meetpause.bandcamp.com and download it for free (I’ll wait) and Let’s Break it down…

1. Cell Blocks & River Docks

The album starts out in classic emotive rock fashion.  A few notes some silence then we get into the meat and potatoes.  The album’s longest song by just over two minutes summons up a a pretty epic guitar love/hate ballad.  By the third line it’s getting pretty dark and rocking out, Scott’s vocals are accusing and assertive.  Graeme’s work on the skins is beyond excellent and really drives this song.  You can’t beat the chorus either! The song switches from manic to depressive and back again.  It feels nostalgic, maybe i’m just projecting my slap dash love life.

2. (Don’t) Get the F*ck Out of Jersey 

Oh I like this one!  This mad as hell and it’s not gonna take it anymore.  “If you can’t stand to be around (Then get the fuck out!)”  I can’t wait to see them live cuz I wanna yell that out in a crowded room.  I might just go to a restaurant and do it anyway.  Start with the drums and that fucking catchy guitar riff.  This song has it!  Whatever it is, more more more of this.  It’s the same feeling I get when I Hear Long Way down by the Goo Goo Dolls (when I listened to the Goo Goo Dolls).  and wait for the break down with the keys and bass!  Put that shit on a mixtape and send it off to your ex girl friend.  When she texts you that she doesn’t have a tape deck text her a picture of you flipping her the bird!

3. Cluster Cascade

The Title Track… the albums slows down for a little sing long.  Artifacts of Get-up Kids, Brand New, and Funeral for Friend come through.  This song has a great potential for live shows.  I’m not totally sold though, I think of this track as a sort of intermission to the album.

4. Lakes, Ladders, Laboratories

Back to the rock!  Guitar comes in hard followed by keys and lead guitar.  This is a bit more hopeful than the rest of their catalog.  Of all their songs this is the most danceable.  This feels like I’m in the fight/race scene from a sci fi movie set in the future where the vehicles are made of psychic projection and whatever it was in Ghost that made Patrick Swayze be about to move shit.

5. Coworkers

Someone has dipped his pen in the company ink!  And it went very very wrong.  Thats what I get from this song.  Or it’s about to get very wrong.  I’m not totally sure.  This is a perfect end to the album.  Get breakdown on keys, nice and simple with a little power guitar.  It’s the end of the movie song when the hero decides he has to choose between responsibility to humanity or banging Mary Jane and he (surprising) walks off into the sunset.

In summation, I was not disappointed.  On the contrary I was quite thrilled.  Meet/Pause still has it!  This is surely a herald of things to come.  One of the last unabashedly local “emo” bands does an excellent job of staying true to their sound and evolving as well.  I’ve labeled them as emergency rock.  Listen to the album, and you’ll see, it’s urgent it’s pleading and it’s tempo rises and falls at the right points.  It’s free too so if you can’t afford it/ your just being lazy.