I discovered UTKF, a punk rock group from London, Ontario, Canada after they followed me on Tumblr, (such a wonderful site), and they posted a link to a review and asked if anyone else wanted to review their latest album, Set the Fire. Seeing that I like doing that, I offered to review it, and here we are!
Something I noticed from the first listen is the energy of this group. Even though the pace of the songs in the album may change, there is a consistent level of energy flowing through each track that makes the music contagious. You can absolutely tell from listening how much effort and love these guys put into their work. The music also feels extremely natural; nothing is forced in the slightest. They make the music that they love, and there's nothing else to it.
The album kicks off with "Tonight's The Night", a fantastic piece of punk rock through and through. I'm a sucker for dueling vocalists, and absolutely love the back and forth nature and contrast of the vocals, with raspy and smooth coming together and creating fantastic chemistry. My foot began tapping along with the beat naturally, as well as my head nodding along. You can't help it. I'm also a big fan of the large amount of bass guitar present in not only this song, but throughout the album. The next track on the record, "Grey Matter" begins with a groovin' bass line, and explodes into fiery drum-driven punk gold. I love the vocals in this song as well, alternating between quick and drawn out to create great contrast. The harmonies that came in just towards the end of the song were fantastic as well.
As the album progresses, I become more and more impressed with their ability to present intense sounding guitars and crashing drums, and not come off as obnoxious or particularly in your face. The gritty sound they achieve while being catchy is awesome. "A Little More", for example, has guitar parts that sound like they could be straight from a much heavier band, yet the overall sound remains punk. It almost has the feel of A Day To Remember combined with The Story So Far. I dig it a lot. Another one of my favorites from the record is the title track, "Set The Fire", which is passionate and has an instrumental with fantastic contrasts. It goes from moments of crunching guitar riffs and pounding drums to nothing but quick clean guitar solos or the bass guitar and a little cymbals. I also really enjoy the outro, without any vocals; just the band wailing away at their instruments and making some rocking noises. The next track, "Put Me On" is another song full of contrasts, and is itself a contrast compared to the rest of the album. It doesn't slow down at all, but mellows out a bit in sound. The verses are much more low key than the chorus, with palm muted guitars and more subtle drumming. This song is also more oriented on the vocals than the instrumental as well, which serves as a good contrast. It was another favorite from the album, especially with the build up from the bridge into the final chorus. It begins as the drums slowly picking up, but then when the guitars come roaring in, it creates a rocking sound like something out of a Blink-182 song.
The rest of the album rides up and down from song to song in terms of pace and fire. "What Matters" starts off with an intro of drums and a slick duet of guitar and bass, which smoothly transitions into the first verse that picks up the pace, but not enough to be explosive. The chorus is the best part, with the shouts of "Hey!" in the background of one of the vocalists singing "This is not what I signed up for". The next song, "Better Than Nothing", follows the feel of a song by The Wonder Years and has punk written all over it. It drives and it has a pure fun feel to it. "Get It Right" begins with some neat guitar riffs and expands into a song that would be perfect for cruising on a summer day with friends. It has energy, it bites, yet it makes you want to groove along and have a good time. "Underdogs" and "Leaving" are both fantastic pieces of punk rock, being driven heavily by the crashing and furious drumming, which shows off the fantastic skills of the drummer, Daniel Foster-Roman. The final song of the track, "Wake Up", is deceptive with it's intro. It begins chilled out, with simply vocals and a guitar line that rapidly switches into an explosion of the full band. This song was a superb choice to end the album with, because it goes all over the place. The first half is definitely more punk oriented, with some sick syncopation and rocking guitar going on. The second half, however, slows down, and switches towards a more epic rock sound, with occasional strums and a lot of cymbal work that slowly diminishes until the song and album finishes.
Overall, I was very impressed with this album. It had a real professional quality to it that surprised me. I enjoyed every song, and some really grabbed my attention. Good work guys! 4/5
Tracklist:
Tonight's The Night - 3:35 (4/5)
Grey Matter - 3:13 (5/5)
A Little More - 4:06 (4/5)
Set the Fire - 3:20 (5/5)
Put Me On - 3:39 (5/5)
What Matters - 3:57 (4/5)
Better Than Nothing - 2:39 (4/5)
Get It Right - 4:08 (5/5)
Underdogs - 3:03 (4/5)
Leaving - 3:35 (4/5)
Wake Up - 4:49 (5/5)
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