If you're someone who refuses to listen to anything after Cursive's first breakup and reformation, Kudzu Wish will probably be straight up your alley. This North Carolina quintet doesn't waste any time being artsy or creating mini-epics for albums; they just crank the amps up and deliver the angular, post-hardcore rock the way your older brother likes it. Reverse Hurricane conjures up images of sweaty basement shows where the band is sweating out as much alcohol as they imbibe between each 3-minute blast of intensity.

As mentioned before, a comparison to early - early - Cursive can be drawn here, especially with the vocals, which share a timbre eeriely similar to Stephen Pederson, formerly of Cursive and currently of Criteria. There's also an obvious Chapel Hill influence present, as when you pry back the layers of distortion you can hear the influence of Archers Of Loaf and maybe even Superchunk buried in the mix.

The band works best when firing on all cylinders on tracks such as "We've Got Big Hands" and "The Guilt." The former is a rather ballsy song reminiscent of Vaux, complete with well-placed cowbell usage. The latter is probably Kudzu Wish's "signature" song, if they had one - the 6/8 beat drives the dualing vocals, making a Small Brown Bike comparison all too easy [and all too accurate]. The song builds and crashes a few times before finally coming to a halt after 3 minutes.

Kudzu Wish hasn't released their masterpiece yet and probably won't for a bit of time, but this is a good start on the road to notoriety. Good, solid stuff.

MP3
The Guilt