Replica City – Gift of Knives | EP Review
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Power Goth Recordings
Replica City are kicking off their third year as a band with the Gift of Knives, a short play that reinforces the Colorado group’s grip on melodic riffage and adds some swagger to the set. While the vibes certainly nod towards contemporary pillars like Hot Snakes and Protomartyr, I found this batch of tracks recalling the unexpectedly vibrant twists that Dave Grohl and Hot Water Music managed to sneak into the alt-rock bins of Best Buy in the mid-90s. The dedication to arrangement shows this band thriving in an aggressive yet smooth landscape, with each song surfing along flashy drums and Big Drop-D Energy progressions.
Gift of Knives particularly succeeds in the tone zone department. Matt Dunne shows up with an absolute beast of a bass sound, blending Rancid-esque hairiness with a sparkling, rich low-end. Corey Fruin’s vocals have an engaging, down-to-earth quality that keeps the songs feeling authentic and human while his guitar work rewards with acid-dripped accents to each song’s framework. Nathan Rodriguez’s drumming hits my personal sweet spot of nimble and sloppy, showing a player who can pay the bills but isn’t letting precision get in the way of an earnest performance. All these ingredients are cooked into one tasty enchilada by Lauren Beecher, who has produced, engineered, and mixed every Replica City release to date. I don’t have the specs on Lauren’s studio, but these recordings embrace a “mid-fi” scrappiness and deliver a robust and clear mix that I wouldn’t enjoy as much if it had a higher-end studio polish.
The beauty and risk of an EP is brevity. If I can’t sit through half a set, then obviously, I’m not gonna be sold on a longer play. Replica City tackles four songs over 15 minutes and succeed in keeping my attention. “Charming and Approachable” kicks things off with wild drums and feedback that blast into a tight-knit lamentation. I can already imagine Fruin’s elastic refrain, “There’s gotta be something else,” being a highlight in a live setting. The title track, “Gift of Knives,” pushes Dunne’s bass front and center in a mid-tempo number that floats between semi-ballad and tense chords before lighting up the sky for the outro. “Rear-Fanged” closes out the trio of original songs with the most aggressive of the batch and feels like the connective tissue between the band’s previously released singles and this group of songs. Fruin brings more self-reflection, admitting the “truth is I can’t get enough / now I got a taste of the good stuff” and asking, “What do I gain from this? Nothing.” Buddy, I totally hear you!
The EP ends with a cover of Violent Femmes’ “Kiss Off,” and thankfully, the band avoids the cliched movie trailer “sad song of death” trope for this one. Instead, the song is steadily delivered with the same explosive and fuzzy emotion found in the first three songs. In my headcanon, Replica City is a group forever cursed to cover songs now and again due to their name ;) I’m sure the band has got plenty of other originals to share before hitting the wedding circuit, so I’ll just imagine those true-to-self performances on my own time.
Overall, I’m impressed with Replica City’s ability to go grunge without breaking out the flannels. Lately, I’ve leaned less towards mid-tempo saturated rock songs, but the group’s nervy energy feels like a resource that’s in short supply these days. A true blue rock record that will have me checking out future releases.
Thomas Swinn-McNeely recently bought a wok and is scared of how hot it gets.
