Secondborn
Symbols EP
(self-released)

Nobody will ever accuse the six members of Secondborn of not playing at a frightening speed. The band’s new EP, Symbols, moves along at a clip, from opener “Say Love” with its full staccato bass/drum attack, screaming-fast vocals and trilling arpeggiated guitar riffs, to the tribal beat (sometimes machine gun-like hits) and softer vocals of “Secrets.” Singer Daniel Pinner, guitarists Patrick Trumps and Stefan Hawkins, Tim Benson, who plays guitars too (‘cause this band certainly needs a third one!) as well as synth and sings, Alex Daigle on bass, and Lee Gauthreaux on drums and percussion are seemingly running a race only they heard the starting gun for.

“Wolves and Hounds” has that single-note, main riff at its start and in the big, shouted choruses that reminds one of old U2. It is offset by a simpler, shimmery-guitar verse, but all throughout we get that showing-off of Gauthreaux’s speedy foot and the guitars that seem to just have to follow it.

Thank Christ we have a piano and softer vocals on “In Winter,” though that chunky, train-speeding-down-the-track drums and guitars are on the horizon! Somehow the band manages to keep the lid on their need for speed (at least a little) and this ballad works as the best song here for me, we get a good listen of Pinner’s lead vocals and Benson’s backing vocals, a good read on the love lost lyric, the piano, even though the over-driven power chords and the mega-phone vocal are surely not needed to make the song more dramatic.

You’re getting proficient players, good songwriters and up-in-your face speed with Secondborn’s Symbols. And if this kind of thing works for you, you’ll dig this EP.

You can purchase the album here.