Before I even started to play the first track, I read that the music produced by Don’t Shoot should come with a warning – “one listen to this and you’ll be hooked”. Now that I have discovered their music by myself, I realize that I should probably have paid more attention to this.
For some it will probably the first singer’s voice – flayed and seemingly in pain. For me it was simply the music. It might be because I’m going through an electro period of my life, but ‘Heartless/Legless’ started like an electro shock, bringing with itself everything I appreciate in music these days : a mix of real instruments and computer music hitting like waves.
You keep on listening and you realize that not one song is like the previous one. One is real rock – loud and angry, and before you know it it has switched to indie rock, then blues, then electronic again.
Now this is an EP that makes me happy I chose to listen to it, because you don’t get stuck with five, six or seven tunes that are all (all things considered) the same. No, here you have seven tracks all completely different with (if I counted right) three different singers.
The first track, ‘Heartless/Legless’, reminded me in its progression of the introduction of Archive’s ‘Lights’ and was to me a perfect way to start an EP. ‘Dance with sincerity’ comes as a gentle continuity that links electronic music to a more traditional rock’n’roll music genre that will be adopted in ‘Sea level’ and ‘Epic’.
‘Bye bye blue’ falls somewhere between a quiet Mumford and Sons and a smooth John Mayer. It feels like slowly falling asleep and walking in a dream, which brings you to ‘Sleepwalkers’, a song that really sounds like a nightmare ; starting so peacefully to gradually come to a well-managed hectic pace.
‘Flutters’ is even different. The male vocals will definitely remind you of someone else but you won’t be able to remember who – at least I wasn’t, and I really tried. On the one hand you will feel like you have heard that song a hundred times before, but on the other hand there is something extremely distinctive about it, possibly the alternation between the man and the woman. It is fresh.
My favorite however, because there needs to be one, is the last one. First because it keeps repeating “That’s the truth even if it didn’t happen” which is the title of the EP (and what draws me to this EP in the first place), but mostly because it is like experiencing schizophrenia with a guitar for only company.
Don’t Shoot knows how to diversify and it is what makes them great to me. You don’t get bored when you listen to their music because you keep wondering what musical genre the next track will have to offer.
◀ STANDOUT ⁞ That’s The Truth ▶
◀ SOUNDS LIKE ⁞ The Killers | John Mayer ▶
