Black Market Serotonin - Dead by Five O Clock EP

Black Market Serotonin are a hard/prog rock band based out of Manchester. Their sound is a brash mixture of soaring, accented vocals, thrashing drums and guitar solos. Or at least that is what their debut EP, Dead By Five O Clock, would have you believe. Each track is huge sounding, rock odyssey and the EP itself times out at just about thirty minutes, which is impressive for a five-track CD. It’s the first release by the band so let’s see how their first foray into recorded material goes…

The EPs title track opens the CD, and as one might expect, it’s rich with heavy drums and screeching guitars, while vocalist Andrew Pimblott wails over the track. The song has a serious epic feel to it, the mix of the acoustic opening section and the synths adding substantially to the big sound the band have going on. One thing I will say it that the song has a few too many parts and if the band could have funnelled down some of the material, maybe cut a few guitar solo breaks (of which there are many), they could have come out with a damn fine track. I mean, it’s all in there, and the chorus is a mighty one, although it does go on a bit. That said, ‘Dead By Five O Clock’ is probably the best song on the EP and it’s rightly to the fore.

The big long instrumental parts show up again in the next track, ‘The End of History’. Another ‘big’ song, all the constituent parts of a high energy/high emotion track are there, but the sound and structure just needs to be refined. Same goes for the rest of the EP. ‘Revelation One’ has a kicking chorus, and a Journey-esque breakdown; ‘Clarity’, though perhaps the weakest song melodically, still has a charm; as does the piano infused closer ‘Hours’. Yet all three just drag on too long. By the end the listener’s ears are awash with cymbals, distorted guitars and unintelligible vocals, so much awash that the gems behind the lengthy songs are almost forgotten.

I know that this band are just starting out, and maybe I’m being over critical, and I’ll always prefer snappier, to-the-point songs to 6 minute odysseys. But without a doubt, the EP shows a band that have a good grasp of melody and a strong songwriting sense. As is the way with bands in their early days, it’ll take a while for them to find their footing but, they have potential. If ever the phrase ‘watch this space’ applied, it applies here.

Drop-D Rating: 6/10

Published on Drop-D.ie, 13th June, 2011