Desert City Soundtrack / Settlefish / Sounds Like Violence – Split / 6 Tracks / http://www.deepelm.com / Reviewed 26 July 2004

I love the idea of three-band splits, but I really wish that Deep Elm would have given each band equal time on this disc. Sounds Like Violence may get the aid given to them by being the first track on the disc, but Settlefish gets a half of the tracks on this split (3), with Desert City Soundtrack getting two. However, this split is the same high level of quality that Deep Elm is known for, and “I Push Yup Up The Stairs” is a hard-rock driven track that is brought to the stratosphere by the vocalist of Sounds Like Violence. “Curse Loosely”, Settlefish’s first track on this split, is memorable not only for the stop/start nature of the track, but the wall of noise created by the bass, guitar, and drums that continually backs up the high register of the lyrics. The continual push-and-pull and low-end noise of “Send Your Soldiers To Do The Killing”, a Desert City Track, may seem odd compared to the piano-led bridge of the track, but really has a place in the track because this Odd Couple so accurately parallels war.

Moving back to the crunchy guitars and At The Drive-In styled vocals of Settlefish for “Who Placed The Dots on Dyslexia?”, the listening audience is treated to a retro-feeling drumbeat working its way underneath the vocals. However, the earth sounds of the background noises in “January’s Loss”, the last Desert City Soundtrack track, designate it as the one track that absolutely needs to be heard to be believed. While the vocals laid down on it are par for the course, Desert City Soundtrack has arranged the bass, guitar, and drums in a heartbreaking way. Highly distorted, the bass peters off into a guitar-led circus-on-acid sound that ends the track.

Settlefish’s “Who Placed The Dots on Dyslexia?” is a groovy little track that has a bass line that is worthy of Matt Freeman or Mike Dirnt. The guitar work and vocals fit in quite nicely with the rest of the Settlefish tracks on the disc, but it is the experimentations in bass-work that makes “Who Placed The Dots on Dyslexia?” such a fitting track for this disc. However, it is during Settlefish’s morose last track, “Glass Party”, that the individual listener really hears the disc winding down, grinding to a halt. Deep Elm has conquered with this latest split, picking three bands that are aurally similar but completely distinct from each other.

Top Track: January’s Loss

Rating: 6.7/10