Skies on Fire – 2009

It’s been a few years and these New Jersey natives are still together. Pretty good when Eddie Cuddy, lead singer/guitarist, is peacing out for college in the fall. Much more importantly, these kids aren’t in college and they are blowing a lot of their competition out of the water.

The album is five songs and not shy of a definite departure from their first demo they put out,entitled So Far, So Good, which came out a Summer ago. The biggest difference: the mood. Leaving the realm of angsty aggressive indie rock into the realm of indie rock mixed with indie pop, SOF is doing one of two things at the moment: either really putting their heart into their instruments or faking it really really really well.

Another big departure from the last demo, production quality. The singers aren’t being shafted on vocal tracks this time, and it shows. On So Far, So Good you could hear the rushed recording that accompanied the instruments. This new venture seems like a lot more time went in to this album, inside and outside of the studio. Also, the more prominent use of some sort of click track seems like it’s helping too. On the first album, there were a lot of tiny production errors. Summed together with post-production errors and a rushed recording session, you can see how things could get some what messy despite their best efforts. This new demo is really flourishing in what kind of studio band SOF can be.

The biggest similarities to other bands that come off the top of my head are a local band and one of my favorite bands: You, Me & Iowa and The Get Up Kids. It’s pretty clear if you compare YMI’s latest album, called The Adventures of You, Me & Iowa, and this demo what kind of slot SOF might fall into. As for TGUK, one of my favorite bands ever, something YMI doesn’t have is two singers, like Matt Pryor and Jim Suptic are to TGUK. The big thing that this does for SOF is that diversity in their music won’t just have to come from how they make their music sounds but from the shared singing duties they could potentially utilize.

The five songs on this CD are solid for the most part, but the only thing that is driving me into a “wtf” state is the identity crisis shown on the CD. When I talk about diversity on a CD I don’t mean how many different genres you can cram in before every single radio station can play a song off your newest release. Consistency in the sound is maybe the thing lacking on this album… but that doesn’t take away from the music. It’s still good music. The first song “Out of the Grey” shows off this indie pop side of SOF pretty clearly with the first half of the song. No distorted guitarist, keyboards, a lot of indie pop stuff that the scene is creaming over right now. Then the second half of the song is this heavy jamb from whoknowswhere. Unexpected, yes. Unwarrented? I’m not so sure. But that does set the stage for the rest of the album. The second song “Tail Light at a Distance” is the most throwback to SOF’s older songs. Crunchy with dah-dah-dah’s and singalong choruses written to be sung along to. I’d be pissed if the entire CD sounded like this song, but I’d also be pissed if they shunned what they did so well a year ago. “Good Enough”, the third track, is where we see a singer change. This is a slower jam that some might call the scenester nu-ballad that every single band ends up writing. Complete with sappy-sad lyrics and a volume fade out into the sunset. “Photography” is a song where endless solos aren’t just saved for the live show anymore. It’s got this east coast vibe to it, but after sitting through 5 minutes and 36 seconds of that last song I have to admit I wasn’t really in the mood for another slow jam, despite my love for swing/jazz snare beats. From 3:30 to 4:33 is a cheese filled solo from a decade these kids weren’t born in. Then from 4:33 to 5:19 (which is the end of the song) you have some vocals and soloing over that. Endless. At least until the song itself ended. The only two songs that were similar were “Good Enough” and “Photography”, and knowing Eddie Cuddy I really don’t think he’d like it too much if that was the kind of sound his band produced for a full length CD. As for the last song on the album, “Winter”, this is the shortest and maybe the most New Jersey of all the songs on here. Once again loud and heavy, it’s got this “Cat Scratch Fever” vibe to it that makes you think “are we going down to the shore?”. Not trying to knock it, but to end the CD on that track really seals the deal for the identity crisis, and I don’t mean Thrice’s album (or their current state as a band).

The pros: for each song, awesome solid songs produced and recorded great. Great vocals to boot, which is hard to find from a few high schoolers.

The cons: I’m never a fan of going to a show and being confused as to what the next song will sound like. Some bands can do it, but those bands usually walk a fine line between doing it well and ruining themselves. This line is much finer for a band whose pond is quite small. So the personality disorder is definitely my own personal con to this album. The other con would be two similar sounding slow songs right after each other. There isn’t much room for error in track listing a demo CD, and it seems that if there was an area that lacked anything it was the track listing. The first song has a slow jam to it for the most part, the second song is definitely a pick-me-up to the album. To keep the integrity of the album currently, I might suggest listening to the album in this order: Out of the Grey, Tail Lights at a Distance, Photography, Winter, Good Enough. However, if I were to listen to this CD/decide the tracklisting… I would make Tail Light at a Distance the LAST song on the CD. Maybe it might sound better if it were Out of the Grey, Photography, Winter, Good Enough, and Tail Lights last? Still, two slow jams…. but maybe catching them early is better than leaving two songs that are 5:30 a piece right after each other. Who knows.

Aside from the second half of this review, of me railing the album of it’s faults, I do believe that overall I like it. Out of 5, I’d give it 3.5/5. It might have been higher if there were one or two more songs on this demo, preferably one more fast song and an acoustic song. Also, it would have been a lot lower if the Photography solo was any longer.

This has been tagged for relay. If you want to download this album, I would suggest heading towards the SOF myspace website: www.myspace.com/skiesonfirenj