Adventures - Adventures Review

rating: 3

From Pittsburgh, PA come the Indie/Emo 5-piece Adventures. The outfit is a combination of three of the members from the Hardcore band Code Orange Kids, Reba, Joe, and Jami, with the addition of Dom as another guitarist and Kimi as a keyboardist. The music is substantially softer than their Hardcore roots but here and there you can hear the influence seep out. The band has prepping to put out their self-titled 7" on No Sleep Records in just a couple days but is it truly an adventure worth looking for? The band really takes the combination of Indie and Emo seriously, it has that brand of lo-fi sound that both genres are comfortably known for. The only issue I have with this is that Kimi€™s keyboards are completely buried; I had to listen through the 7" specifically listening for where the keyboards may be to find them they were so understated and even then they are so muted they hardly add anything to the composition at all. However the other instruments work perfectly in this production, especially the guitars which have a great tone to them and really set the emotional tones of the music. Reba€™s voice is the other cue to the tone; her delivery is very somber and fits the bleak atmosphere of the music. The best parts of the 7" are towards the end of a couple songs when Reba really digs her feet in and throws out some distorted yells. The yells accentuate the emotion of the music and do a great job of acting as a climax for the songs that end with them. If Reba€™s yells are the highlights of the album then the lesser parts have to be the slower tempos. Walking and Like Seed particularly suffer from having very slow tempos that do very little to grab the listeners attention, Walking in particular is one slow journey with not a whole lot of interest during the trip until Reba starts yelling. Thankfully the other two tracks off the 7" , I Feel So Sure and Reach Out To You handle the tempos much better, Reach Out To You ends the 7" on the highest note with the most tense sound and most memorable songwriting with the little stop time additions and big crashing finish. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kwxj-9GF1Qs Since the self-titled is only four tracks long totally about 12 minutes of music there€™s really not a whole lot left to talk about. Half the tracks are above-average fares with good structure and songwriting (I Feel So Sure, Reach Out To You) and the other half fall behind a bit with their slower, sluggish feel (Like Seed, Walking). If you enjoy the lo-fi era of Emo music and are intrigued by the thought of distorted female vocals then by all means pick this up, for everyone else this is a nice quick release but outside of Reach Out To You there€™s nothing particularly amazing to write home about. Adventures€™ self-titled release will be out on No Sleep Records September 11th and you can get more from Adventures on their Facebook page