Direct Effect

Sunburn (2014)

Ricky Frankel

It looks as if the Philadelphia scene (and Orlando in this case) has done it again. It has produced another band that the scene has begun to keep an eye on. However, we aren't talking about a band like The Menzingers or The Holy Mess. We're talking about hardcore band Direct Effect. This band is full of anger and aggression. Their LP, Sunburn, exemplifies this quite well. The vocals are sort of reminiscent of Henry Rollins-era of Black Flag and the instruments are like if Minor Threat had a much fuller sound than they did.
A cool song on this album is called "Nostalgia." Most hardcore songs have fairly similar beats, but this song's beat really stands out. It's one of the slower songs on the album, but the chorus' guitar riff is especially catchy. The guitar sounds incredibly screechy and it ends the song really well.
Another good song on this album has a very creative title. It's called "[ ]." Literally, that's the name of this song. How does one pronounce that? "Brackets?" First of all it's cool just for it's title, but this song has such a heavy bass intro that gets you immediately hooked. It's easy to assume that this is a perfect song to start a circle pit. The verse's guitar hook is awesome and filled with a nice touch of feedback. It adds some great character to the song.
Sunburn does lack some originality in some areas, which seems to be the only drawback. There are some killer guitar solos and riffs that have some great use of a wah pedal and fantastic screaming and lyrics, but this album needs a little more substance than that.
Overall, it's a solid hardcore album. It's definitely worth giving this album a listen.