Sides of the North

Item: The Incurable Romantic
Author: John Durkee

The Incurable Romantic

(2005)

Reviewed by John Durkee

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Label Word of Mouth RecordsDecapolisApril 2005

alternative metal indie rock post-grunge post-hardcore

When I saw Sides of the North last year, they wore their influence on their back... literally. The drummer wore his Chevelle shirt. Sides of the North have a great ability to make haunting guitar sounds with good riffs and moaning vocals, like Chevelle or Tool.

The concept of the album is that God is an incurable romantic in His love for His children, as the album title suggests. I'm not sure I agree with the theological implications of such a theme, but it makes for an interesting perspective, especially when the music is more haunting than uplifting.

The album begins aptly with, "Intro," that starts with echoing piano before climaxing with the beginning of the next song, "The Incurable." "The Incurable"'s thundering guitars and heavy bass presence are a common theme throughout the whole album. Sides of the North often uses a formula for their songs that include softly played verses with crooning vocals and choruses with heavy distortion. This simple song structure isn't necessarily bad, but for those who like complex structures, this album isn't for you. There are times where screams are added to the formula, along with some good instrumental parts here and there.

For long time fans like myself, the album isn't quite as rewarding since it contains songs from their previous EP; however this shouldn't hurt them too much seeing as this is their first widely distributed album. The positive side of this is that the songs used from the EP are the best songs from the EP and it helps bring those songs to a much bigger audience. Such songs like, "Evening Hymn" and "Slowly and Sometimes Never," deserve such exposure as they are possibly Sides of the North's best songs.

Although they do a good job of utilizing a more mainstream rock sound that doesn't get redundant and trivial, they have a certain amount of quirks that hold them back. Their vocalist is just a bit short of greatness in that his voice has a lot of quality, but often sounds like he's just whining and moaning. "The Up and Up" is a good example of this. In this song he whines to the point of sounding slightly out of tune, which is too bad because the song has a fairly good hook.

Sides of the North is much like many bands signed to independent labels; decent and full of potential. This release has its moments and is an enjoyable listen, but lacks the creativity of their influences. Once Sides of the North establishes their own identity, I believe they have the potential to be great, but until then, they're just an average rock band.

2/4