Features

Spring Offensive - Duelling Critics: Spring Offensive

GodisintheTV 23/08/2010

Quite often here at GIITTV, we find ourselves trying to decide who reviews what. Whilst a lot of our writers have differing tastes, there are always some bands that inspire a large number of us to put pen to paper (or, y'know, fingers to keyboard). Hopefully what follows here is a solution to our problem, allowing more than one opinionated so-and-so to wax lyrical about a record or band. We'll still be giving our now traditional marks out of 5 but offering a more diverse review that will highlight the subjective nature of music.

For this pilot feature, Craig Broad and Rhian Daly tackle Spring Offensive's 14 minute single 'The First of Many Dreams About Monsters'. Let us know on the comments your thoughts on the song and the feature itself.

Craig Broad

So here is the new single from art-indie indepent band Spring Offensive, the fourteen minute single, free to download, coming fast on the heels of their self-released debut album 'Pull Us Apart'.

Inspired by 'The Grief Cycle', a five step insight created by psychiatrist Elisabeth Kübler-Ross in an attempt to discover peoples methods in dealing with the difficulties in life, '
If you have heard Spring Offensive before, then you will know exactly what to expect, drumming that provides a great backline to the band but is also original and challenging at the same time, while the guitar interplay is both bright and melodic working to its highest ability when combined with intelligently thought out lyrics.

'The First Of Many Dreams About Monsters' won't set the world alight, and I am still personally expecting better things from Spring Offensive but that aside, this is still a great place to discover the band.

3.5/5

Rhian Daly

When a 14 minute track by a band you've not heard of lands in your inbox, there's one terrifying thought that races through your mind in 30ft flashing neon lettering: PROG. Once the shudders have resided the play button gets pressed albeit tentatively and the wait for horrific drudgery begins.

Thankfully, that moment never comes. Spring Offensive are not prog, being rather more affiliated with math-rock guitar melodies than lyrics about goblins in made up ancient lands. 'The First of Many Dreams About Monsters' is, in fact, not one long song but five separate heart-bursting mini epics inspired by Elisabeth Kübler-Ross' grief cycle and its stages of denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance.

Although it is a bit hard to see why the band have decided to present all five songs as one track instead of turning it into an EP (but maybe they're just a bit more out-of-the-box than us), there's no denying that '...Many Dreams About Monsters' is a mind-blowing stroke of genius in terms of hard-hitting songwriting and all round musicianship. The often sparse arrangement and dramatic changes in dynamics pull the concept into the forefront of the song, making sense of the lyrics exploring another's grief in a kind of pathetic fallacy.

Whilst we might not take to digesting all our music like this, the unusual approach by Spring Offensive is attention grabbing and effective. As powerful and moving as 'The First of Many Dreams About Monsters' is, here's hoping they don't take to producing whole records as wrenchingly emotional as this one; our poor hearts just couldn't take it.

4.5/5

Spring Offensive Myspace

You can download the single for free on August 20th by clicking here.