Album Review: Sights & Sounds - 'Silver Door'

Following up their very well received full-length debut 'Monolith,' Canada's Sights & Sounds have released a gem of an EP, which works to cover most of the colours in the rock n' roll spectrum.

'Silver Door' is engaging from the beginning, with 'Poli's Song', a hard working Gaslight Anthem-like affair. Meaty guitar riffs, strained vocals and pounding drums, the opening track is an immediate stand-out. It's melody heavy while gritty enough to inspire some devil horns in the air. 'Cards In Place' takes a slightly different route, this time driven by its fast paced drums. The vocals and guitars work in tandem in a gang vocal, almost haunting way, eventually given slight glimmers of light from subtle guitar lines and a soaring chorus line.

'Nothing At All' is another highlight. A small melody leads into a huge wall of sound, a powerful driving anthemic rock song the twists its melodies in with the sheer force of its instrumentation. This drifts into the creeping intro for 'Hold On Me', which contains one of the more aggressive chorus lines of the EP. Hearing the band open up to these harsh screams and waves of distortion make you wish they would do it a lot more.

Penultimate track 'Solo, So Low', is arguably a weirder track that seems a little out of place. Featuring some surf guitar and riffs that sound like they were pulled from an old spy movie it's interesting if nothing else. Things are pulled back into place with 'Good Morning', which ends the EP in a similar fashion to how it began: brash rock n' roll with plenty of energy and passionate vocal lines.

A solid EP that will sit well in any current playlist.

Sights & Sounds have a fair bit of variety under their rock umbrella that comprises the sound. But, it comes down, quite simply, to good song-writing, which is what makes 'Silver Door' one of the finer rock EPs released this year.

1. Poli's Song

2. Cards In Place

3. Nothing At All

4. Hold On Me

5. Solo, So Low

6. Good Morning