Emotionalpunk.com
Media Review
Music Quality: 9.0
Production: 7.0
Originality: 8.5
Tracklisting
2. ...Tastes Like Black Licorice
3. I Sing The Body Electric
4. Cirrhosis Of The Cinema
Aggressive. The Stiletto Formal stands in the foreground of progress. A fusion of sounds and styles, a collision, a cacophony. Their second EP release, “This is My Boomstick” presents an interesting blend of style. Strong vocals, plenty of instruments blending together, and a unique lyrical song structure. I hate comparisons, but its impossible to explain this sound. Somewhere between Lydia and the Mars Volta.
The vocals stand out immediately; the vocalist has enough confidence to come well above his vocal range into a stunning falsetto, at times so high that he loses his ability to be on key, while also dropping his voice into his natural bass voice, almost speaksinging. He also has an impressive scream, not screamo scream, but screaming and singing. There are no limits on what the vocals can be on this album, and while the falsetto was rough on occasion, the vocals are incredibly strong. The lyrical structure; (anecdote, sorry) I saw this band recently at Warped Tour, and while watching “Cirrhosis of the Cinema”, I remember a long instrumental part, after which the singer began singing again, and I thought, “Ohh, he has some more words to say”. Not that he had to sing the chorus over again, that he had more to tell us. The song structure is as a short story, read the lyric booklet and be amazed at the writing/lyrics. It is intelligent, and reflective. There is no chorus, but you may never notice it unless you read the lyrics. The occasional backing female vocals are brought in to harmonize, sometimes to create dissonance, occasionally they come in a beautiful, full voice.
The instrumentation is all around impressive. The addition of a cello adds depth to the music, blending somewhere between the bassline and the guitar parts. The piano and organs can both blend in to create background noise, or play small licks along with the guitar. The guitars are somewhere near metal at times, sometimes delicate picking. The drums seem to drag behind the music, which seems to be reigning in the energy and urgency of each song. There are additional percussions, cowbells, maracas, and tambourine.
The music is decidedly heavy, but not in a depressing or overbearing way. Just in a serious and earnest way. “I Sing the Body Electric” stands out to me as the most memorable track, the song seems to stay within one style, but one perfected style. A morose ballad, the cello plays mournful, long slow bow strokes. At times the music, and the mood could be construed as pretentious, or even sound as simple chaos; this is not for the meek, embrace dissonance, embrace change.
Music unconfinable to any genre, shifting and evolving within each song and through an EP. Proficient and talented musicians working together, in unison and against each other. Strong songwriting