3 out of 5

Label: Level Plane Records

Produced by: Kurt Ballou (engineered by)

Sometimes you gotta work with your limitations. Sometimes, you find your sweet spot within those limitations… and you stay there. Hardcore punkers A Day in Black & White settled on an aggressive, marching pace; a hoarse yell for the vocals; and a kind of cascading stairs melody, and they structured five songs out of it. While overall variation isn’t necessarily key for this kind of music – three chords being the tradition for punk and all – there’s something to be said for rearranging the pieces you have, and while I truly enjoy opener Forward/Backward on this set, it’s meaningful that followup There Are Objects & Objects sounds nearly exactly the same, sans a long buildup, and the same holds true for the next couple tracks as well, before closer The Illusion of the End does an instrumental version of that long buildup.

The thing is: this truly is the band’s sweet spot. The drumming is intense, amply assisted by Kurt Ballou’s engineering (although the guitars and bass are kept a little flat; it might mean something that he only took an engineering tag here), and while I wish there was at least 1% dynamism in the vocals, the single note the singer hits is an inspiring one – it’s a shout you want to pump your fist to.

Ultimately, though, the group is spreading out its one really good idea by doing some slow bits inbetween. It ends up being pretty effective at delivering an EPs worth (or short album) of tracks, though you end up walking away more with a sense of that singular sound than humming any particular song.