Band:	Shorts And Churchbells
Album:	Reason To Complain
Style:	Death metal, Thrash metal
Release date:	2006
A review by:	Bas

01. Rotting World
02. No More
03. Reason To Complain
04. Division Desvastation
05. SAC
06. Kill With A Smile
07. One Shot One Kill
08. Tell Me
09. Go Ahead

Shorts And Churchbells? I don't know what kind of bells that bandname rings for you, but the first time I heard that name I was extremely skeptical. No need to worry though! Just put 'Reason To Complain' into your stereo or PC or whatever you have and let your doubts be metalled away!

That was a pretty bold statement indeed, but here it is perfectly justified. The first few seconds of the CD are already enough to let you know what you are in for. Some quite technical but very catchy guitar riffs and even more then that. SAC play melo death on a quite technical level. They don't really play it in a special way or do anything very original in their music, but to me this album is a lot more enjoyable then all new melo death I have heard since a long time. They manage to do it in a way which makes you be able to enjoy listening only to the technical aspects of the music but just as well have fun with the catchy riffs and melodies if you prefer.

Let's analyse the instruments a bit. The basslines are very effective, which they must be, seen that there is only one guitarist. They are very well done and luckily don't give us any "Reason to Complain". Now to the drumming; the drumming is extremely rich in variation, it has some slow rhythms and some fast ones, not extremely fast though, but most of the time it is midtempo. It keeps changing during the song and although it always has the same style and the same feel to it, it never sounds exactly the same for a long time. The vocals on the other hand don't have that much variation, sure, sometimes they are faster, sometimes slower, sometimes they are more extreme, sometimes they sound more hoarse, sometimes more like growls etc. but basically they are always slightly hoarse-sounding screams. Despite not being overly complicated (which doesn't mean that they are simple though!) they fit extremely well into the music and I can't really imagine this band with a different vocalist. Next in line to be described is what makes the band most enjoyable for me, the guitar. Like I already mentioned there is only one guitarist here, quite unusual for the style. But hey, apparently it works! Some of the leads are played quite fast while sometimes it is quite melodic, you can always rely on it being technical and catchy though.

Probably one of the reasons that the songs are so effective is that they aren't any longer then they need to be. How often have bands ruined songs that could have been awesome by making them too long and adding some boring riff or a second-rate solo just to make it longer? Uncountable times, but it isn't the case here. Apart from 'SAC' which is just over one minute (and would in my opinion serve much better as intro then as interlude) and 'No More' which is the longest song with it's 4:30, all songs clock in between three and four minutes.

Unfortunately the booklet doesn't contain any lyrics, so I can't say anything about those. The coverart is rather plain and simple too, but hey, that's not what we buy CDs for of course, is it? No, that's nonsense of course, the only serious problem I have though, and it's a serious one indeed, is the length of this great album! It is unfortunately only half an hour long, but if you decide to buy this then you will notice that every minute is pure quality.

Apart from that detail, I have no 'Reason to Complain'.