Silent Drive's debut album, Love Is Worth It, is a bit on the schizophrenic side, to say the least. Featuring members of fist-pumping champions Bane and the defunct ironycore unit Drowningman, a good number of these songs have shredding guitar riffs, heart-attack inducing drum beats, and singer Zach Gordon's bark mimics that of Davey Havok at his best [and least androgynous], and at sometimes even dials up a bit of Dag Nasty-era Dave Smalley. It's these parts of the songs that totally and completely rip.

But then the other side of the song comes in, heavy on melody both in instrumentation and vocals. On a number of these songs, I found myself asking "is this the new Midtown record in disguise?", as the vocals effortlessly slide from a powerful growl into higher octaves singing sticky sweet melodies like in album opener "4/16" and album closer "Boyfriend Notes." It's a strange dichotomy, one that shouldn't work at all.

Yet somehow it does.

A number of these tracks blend the aggression and melody into one incredibly tight-knit package, leaving the listener no time to say "Hey, wait a sec, this really shouldn't work as well as it does..." before the next song comes roaring out of the gates. Much of this is due to the actual production of the record - it's impeccable. This is turning into the year of Bill Stevenson, as he's already done two masterpieces with the new A Wilhelm Scream and Audio Karate discs, and this album is completely solid from start to finish.

There's a lot of bands currently attempting the screamy/poppy hardcore hybrid right now, but Silent Drive is one of the few I've listened to that has the pedigree as well as the passion to pull it off. Their melodies can be downright hypnotic, and the musicianship here is incredibly strong, as evidenced in "Banana Rejection." This album takes a bit to grow on you, but there's a lot of good stuff going on here.

MP3s
American Classic
Banana Rejection
Our Lady Of The Worthless Miracle