I've been a big fan of the band Hit The Lights, as of their last full length album (The one with the 'new' singer) and their follow-up EP, which have been played quite a lot on my iTunes.
They just released another new EP called 'Invicta', hinting at another full length coming out next January. It's got a jellyfish on the cover and some nice typography going on in the corner, with a cool inverted 'V for an A' trick.
You can tell just from the cover that this is a more mature direction, especially when compared to the cover of their last full-length, which was almost a blatant Blink-182 CMYK paint splatter theme. Not to mention they named it "Skip School, Start Fights". This time, they busted out some crafty latin on us, as invicta means "unvanquished". Deep, son.
This EP has 3 tracks, and right off the cuff of the first song, a super high production value is very apparent. Now, I'm not a stuck up music fan... I love production. I think it's great this band has that kind of time and money at it's disposal, they deserve it, and they hit the first two tracks home.
"Gravity" has a much more serious sound than we've heard from the band before. Really big sound, guitars are deep, drums are big. The tone of the writing as a whole just feels huge. Naturally I'm especially attentive to lead vocals, and lead singer Nick Thomson has a uniquely powerful voice at such a high range. The guy sings like he's got a wench on his balls, and with these songs I bet he's testing his upper limits compared to what he's done before. I think it's a unique thing he brings to the band, and it could surprise some new listeners a little.
All in all, I really enjoyed the first two tracks. "Gravity" and "Earthquake" are very similar in style, and there are plenty of hints of New Found Glory's late material here. Not a bad thing, but it's an obvious conscious attempt to mature their sound, just like NFG did with their "Coming Home" album that really tested their fans.
Similarly, fans will love it or hate it. New listeners will be all over it. That's just how it goes. The third track doesn't hang with the first two though. It doesn't have that catch, and sounds like an old NFG B-Side to me.
I look forward to hearing the full album, two out of three isn't too shabby. I hope there's quite a few more on par with the first two tracks of this EP on the actual album they release in a few months.
My verdict:
Definitely grab the first two tracks, wait for full album which looks promising.
