Scissor File, The - Played on 45s (Album)
It helps that The Scissor File are a rather good-looking band because their pretty faces and tight pants help balance out the mediocrity of their debut release Played on 45s.
The Scissor File are yet another band to be slotted into that dubiously named “alt-rock” genre that is popular with kids these days and which is experiencing a popularity surge in Australia thanks to bands such as The Hot Lies and Kisschasy. City of Churches gets the EP off to a good start. It follows the step-by-step guide to making a hit in this genre – three different boys on vocals creating a moody, intense sound and telling you that what they’re singing is so important it has to be drilled into you from three different directions...a technique that works well on some songs but overwhelms as it is used throughout and eventually becomes so difficult to listen to that you’ll be begging for some silence to give your brain a break.
Dirty Little Secret follows but does little to keep the momentum going. It is the supposedly “infectious” first single but sounds a little too much like one of those songs you’d hear during a Channel Ten promo ad for summer. It doesn’t come close to being as edgy as its lyrics would have us believe it is. The next song, I Swear, I Never, gets the EP back on track with all the usual ingredients one expects from a band that sounds like it has taken advice from Taking Back Sunday, Fall Out Boy and The Academy Is... but has fallen just short of being as convincing as those bands are. Because whether you like them or not, those bands have been able to sell their products but The Scissor File don’t seem confident enough of their own music to achieve this.
Then again, this is their debut EP and perhaps I should be a little less harsh. There are great moments on Played on 45s but they unfortunately aren’t enough to hold the listener’s attention all the way through the six tracks and after the third or fourth song, you’ll find yourself losing focus and wishing for the noise in the background to stop...something that no musician wants to happen with a record, but particularly on an EP when every song is meant to grab you, shake you up and make you care about what you’re hearing. If nothing else, Played on 45s demands to be played loudly. If you like your music to be a little messy and pretty noisy, you’ll enjoy this offering from The Scissor File.
