Static Dress - Rouge Carpet Disaster review
| Band: | Static Dress |
| Album: | Rouge Carpet Disaster |
| Style: | Post-hardcore, Metalcore |
| Release date: | May 2022 |
01. Fleahouse
02. Sweet.
03. Push Rope
04. Attempt 8
05. Courtney, Just Relax
06. Di-sinTer [feat. King Yosef]
07. Such.A.Shame
08. ...Maybe!!?
09. Lye Solution
10. Unexplainabletitlesleavingyouwonderingwhy (Welcome In)
11. Marisol
12. Cubicle Dialogue
All dressed up and nowhere to go...
…is how the state of post-hardcore looks in 2022, a genre that has long needed a dose of fresh blood, as yesterday's heroes lack the exuberance youth affords a band. Like a spring being released after years of tension, Static Dress produce a cathartic and vital release unto a music scene still trying to find its feet after years of Covid-enforced hibernation.
Blasting out the gate with tracks like "Push Rope", Static Dress show that there are phoenixes rising from the flames of the scorched Earth that the past two years have been. Rouge Carpet Disaster is the shot in the arm the music scene needs from a younger, hungry band, one that is burning brighter than their brethren on tracks like "Di-sinTer" and "Fleahouse", which should see the band draw in new fans like moths to flame, thanks to the band's Britpop, grungy, emo-tinged post-hardcore.
Led by Appleyard, the band are a tight-knit group who click together and play to each other’s strengths. The riffs produced by Contrast (no really, that is the guitarist's stage name) on tracks like “Fleahouse” are catchy yet subdued, fitting well next to Appleyard to create a Deftones-esque track that carries all the hallmarks of grunge without sounding backwards-facing.
Producer Erik Bickerstaffe of UK alt act Loathe proves to be a wise appointment for the band. Ably balancing all the different elements of the band's sound while maintaining the charm of each part allows tracks like "such.a.shame" and "...Maybe!!?" to hit the heights that they do. The band is heavy enough to entice metalheads, yet won't scare off those who only dabble at the fringes of the genre. This balancing act is one that the band maintain throughout the album; even on softer tracks like “Marisol” the band are still able to capture that underlying menace and charm that makes Rouge Carpet Disaster the great album that it is.
As enjoyable as the album is however, there are moments when the lack of a truly anthemic chorus hinders the album. Given the band's emo roots, it is odd that they don't dig deeper into their influences to concoct and produce the type of track that will have live audiences screaming their lungs out; for all its shortcomings, it is one thing the emo scene was perhaps best at producing. While the band are able to stitch together strong verses and riffs, the one missing thread is something that you cannot help but notice.
Rouge Carpet Disaster is one of those rare moments when the stars align and you get a varied yet cohesive-sounding album that is full of quality. It is perhaps the most vital-sounding debut album since the pandemic and one that is necessary for a genre that has been in dire need of a new band to carry the flag forward.
Rating breakdown
| Performance: | 8 |
| Songwriting: | 7 |
| Originality: | 7 |
| Production: | 8 |
 | Written on 09.07.2022 by Just because I don't care doesn't mean I'm not listening. |
Comments
Comments: 12
Visited by: 83 users
| PēterisP Posts: 87  |
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| Starvynth i c deaf people Staff Posts: 3018  |
Written by PēterisP on 12.07.2022 at 08:52 Your calculation is flawed, because the only valid formula looks like this: musical taste ≠ maths In all seriousness, the fact that the mathematical mean of the rating breakdown doesn't have to match the overall score has been explained so many times that it's kind of tiresome. What's missing in the individual ratings is the reviewer's personal opinion of how much they like the album. Everyone weights factors like production or originality differently, so the mathematical approach is simply nonsensical. Instead, it makes much more sense to simply read the review, because only there you can find out what the overall rating is really based on.
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| Redel Moderator Posts: 2079  |
Written by Starvynth on 12.07.2022 at 10:46 The mathematical approach is not nonsensical, but of course it has to account for the weights on each of the four categories. In Peteris' calculation above equal weights were assumed.That is an assumption, which though might differ from the weights the reviewer had in mind, as you pointed out. But if weights are accounted for, the mathematical approach makes perfect sense to me. That being said, I am not a big fan of the four breakdown categories in MS reviews in general. They should be omitted from all reviews, if you ask me. Edit: Only now I realize that my post above was partly misleading. I said in Peteris' calculation equal weights were assumed. I did not mean to refer to the calculation that he wrote down. There obviously non-equal weights were assumed. What I meant was that Peteris probably assumed equal weights and thus stumbled over the overall rating attached to this review.
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| PēterisP Posts: 87 |
Written by Starvynth on 12.07.2022 at 10:46 I would not comment even if you had: Performance: 10 Songwriting: 1 Originality: 1 Production: 1 and still would get 8,4. But if none of the grades are above 8 then 8,4 does not make any sense to me.
---- Metalhead since 1987
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| Redel Moderator Posts: 2079 |
Written by PēterisP on 12.07.2022 at 18:45 What if the categories with the ratings presented are incomplete from the point of view of the reviewer. Maybe the reviewer puts some weight greater than zero on some other categories not presented, say e.g. atmosphere.
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| Starvynth i c deaf people Staff Posts: 3018 |
Written by Redel on 12.07.2022 at 14:20 Dude, I love stats and numbers and I believe in maths, but probability calculation is a part of it. And the probability that there are two people on Metal Storm with an exactly identical personal weighting system of these more or less randomly chosen four criteria, each making up exactly 25%, is zero. Even the number of criteria is random, you could just as well include cover artwork and lyrics. To assume that the average of the rating breakdown must nevertheless correspond exactly to the overall score is therefore pretty naive, methinks. By the way, the rating breakdown has never bothered me. It is what it is: additional information that is never essential, but often useful. For example, I am sure that it can be of use for an audiophile music lover to be able to filter out albums with abysmal sound right away, while the average user might be keen to know why one particular album can be fun despite of a poor production.
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| AndyMetalFreak A Nice Guy Contributor Posts: 4817  |
Written by PēterisP on 12.07.2022 at 18:45 I completely understand your point, but I personally wouldn't read too much into the overall rating, there are a few exceptions where I would give an album an overall high rating despite having all low scores on the quality breakdown, simply because of how much of an impact an album has had on me, or as the above comment says, there may be a special kind of atmosphere that I'm really drawn too, which would also result in me giving a high overall score.
---- http://Andy's 2024 album ranking
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| Redel Moderator Posts: 2079 |
Written by Starvynth on 12.07.2022 at 19:42 Totally agree. But still it is possible that there are reviewers out there who are able to pin down exactly which categories are relevant for them in a specific review and which weights they put on each of them. In this case I can see the mathematical approach of a weighted average work perfectly. But since categories are largely random if reviewers cannot be forced to reveal all relevant ones precisely, plus to put an exact weight on each, I suggest to omit all categories in general, and just allow for an overall rating in reviews.
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| Redel Moderator Posts: 2079 |
Written by PēterisP on 12.07.2022 at 18:45 And what if the two 8s the reviewer put on performance and production are actually an 8.4 each, since first digits are omitted, and songwriting as well as originality have each a weight of zero in the overall score?
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| Karlabos Meat and Potatos Posts: 5658  |
Yeah guys... Start rating NA to avoid this kind of discussion. Plus, maybe people are gonna actually resort to reading the review to
---- "Aah! The cat turned into a cat!" - Reimu Hakurei
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| RaduP CertifiedHipster Staff Posts: 8675  |
Written by Karlabos on 14.07.2022 at 01:43 Way ahead of you, bud
---- Do you think if the heart keeps on shrinking One day there will be no heart at all?
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| Zap Guest Posts: 3529  |
Written by Karlabos on 14.07.2022 at 01:43 Read a review? Like... like... a really long tweet?
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