WELCOME PARIAH 'CATCH THE MOMENT' E.P REVIEW
We live in a world of juxtapositions, opposites and more often than not, a wholly unjust contrast.
For every spoon fed Brit School graduate with a top ten meal ticket, there’s a hundred bands that live for what they do regardless of ease. The world isn’t working the way it’s meant to, systems are flawed and priorities have malfunctioned but as is only right, and by its very definition, Independent music is postured in a defiant stance.
“I am the soldier. I am the one, who’s fighting for your liberty.” - The opening line of ‘The Soldier’, first track of Welcome Pariah’s new E.P ‘Catch the Moment’ instigates a swaggering, contemptuous wall of industrial, smokey guitars. Instantly anthemic in parallel likeness to early Jam records, an agenda sprung from a time before Weller started giving interviews from hotel hot tubs. If the term ‘working class hero’ wasn’t such a media tired cliché, abused by the people it’s meant to oppose, it may have been applicable here.
‘You are Everything’, is a swathe of antagonistic uprising, there’s a lot to be said for a band that can write an original song in regards to ‘the future’ and other such optimistic imagery and not seem uninformed. Throwaway culture defines the majority of the music industry, and all commercial art for that matter. Records aren’t prophylactics or gum that’s lost its taste. They’re real, human endeavour, and when conceived to be merely purchased, they have failed in their most basic purpose. Welcome Pariah, haven’t failed.
‘Luna Halo’ closes the E.P. An instrumental barrage, that isn’t left empty without the drawling, enigmatic vocal that defines the rest of the record. It’s appropriate, well conceived and elaborate without falling into pretention. To anyone who is of the opinion that an instrumental final track is a cop out, go and have a word with Ian Brown. I’m sure he’d be happy to tell you what an uninformed, corporate minded blockhead you are.
The record is both self assured and alluring. It’s brash, but its kind hearted in a relatable manner. It isn’t music for the sake of it, and now more than ever, that’s really fucking important.
Benjamin Maney (Psychedelia)
Welcome Pariah launch their 'Catch the Moment' E.P this friday with a show at The Cellar Southampton.
Tickets- http://www.seetickets.com/event/welcome-pariah-e-p-launch/the-cellar/747094