Pareto EP

PLEASE NOTE - Review by Murray Easton

Pareto is a promising and energetic young band who seem to be making contacts in the right places if their MySpace page is anything to go by. Plays on decent radio shows and the support of the Detour Podcast crew for promotion of their EP.

The opening track on the EP entitled Castles starts with crunching guitars, melodic bass and crashing drums grip you instantly as this track starts with a bang. Things die down for a bit before yet more crunching riffs start. There’s a lot going on in this track with a few stop starts.

If I’m honest the vocals and melody don’t really sit with such a ferocious track, although the ‘and the memories fade, it’s too little, it’s far too late’ is pretty catchy after a few listens.

For me, or for my taste, Nothing Major, Something Sergeant, the second song in is a lot stronger. The rifftastic, crunching guitars are out in force again but its 1 minute 10 second in that the song starts to flow with a glorious guitar break coming in after the second verse.

The highlight of the track for me is almost 2-minutes in when a mantra-like chorus/hook of; ‘I’ll tell the captain you’re in charge, we’ll take pictures of the modern art’ before the songs title is shouted out over the top of it. It reminds me of Idlewild a little bit and it’s extremely promising. I’d like to hear them attempt to write more hooks like this.

Points Win Prizes, a song title that made me smile. It’s an out and out love song with more melodic guitar and cello and the hook ‘Who wins now and who takes the prize? Cause I found love inside your eyes.’

The closing track is Call Me Alphabet starts off with a gentle guitar riff with lyrics about ‘broken promises’ and a ‘love you can’t find’. Overall this song is a lot more thoughtful with what sounds like a cello on the chorus ‘on stepping stones, we’ll find our own’.

There is another clever guitar break around 1 minute 40 seconds in that lifts the song before things slow down with more cello before things build to the climax.

It’s obviously a personal song and for me the vocals are the best on the EP with the singer clearly singing from the heart. There is hope and a welcome naivety to the ‘Life’s for living and don’t stop dreaming’ lyric towards the end of the song.

Overall it is well worth checking Pareto out, they have some very promising moments and seem to be able to shift between monster riffs to melodic love songs. They know how to write a hook and aren’t afraid to write a love song, something I always applaud.

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