album of the week
gyroscope - sound shattering sound

I’ve always hated anything that can be described as ‘emo’. In fact, their usual whining and whinging about how bad life is and how no one loves them is just more of an onus to beat the shit out the snivelling little fucks, and actually give them something to get emotional about. Fuckers. Stop your fucking sooking, you don’t know hurt.

Then Gyroscope came along, proving that everything that is automatically decried as ‘emo’ doesn’t fit in the whinging and bitching (too much) category, and can have the power and veracity of 40 fucking “post-hardcore” (read: pussy) bands.

It’s actually surprising that Gyroscope found the time to get around to recording a full-length album, with the immense amount of touring this band does. Their live show is nothing short of phenomenal; just try seeing them play Safe Forever, and not feel the passion this band evokes. Sound Shattering Sound is the product of being together since 1997, and for the Perth quartet, is a mark of how good they are. Whatever inconsistency that there may be on this album (read: Hollow Like Cheyenne), You Try Waiting This Long, is backed up by the pure, in-your-face anger of Safe Forever, Doctor Doctor, Get Down, or by the hey-we’re-gonna-go-soft emo melancholia of Misery.

Really, Doctor Doctor’s “Hear me out, double cross / just cross me / hope you die for the misery that you gave me / hope you die, hope you die / love from me” is so emotional I can see emo kids across Australia crying in their bedroom to it, whilst wearing their dark denim, prescription glasses, chains, up-market sneakers and deplorable amounts of piercings and dyed black hair and hating their life.

It doesn’t, however, stop Doctor Doctor from being, along with Safe Forever, a stunning song. You can wank as much as you like about the comings and goings of emo, but fuck, when those babies hit you, you better call an ambulance because you’re gonna lose a lot of blood from the moment your heart spontaneously combusts under the massive burst of guitar driven filth that’s shovelled into you. Couple those two with Midnight Express, Are You Getting Any Better, My Hands Are Tied, and Confidence in Confidentiality, (even if they can’t quite match the pure brilliance of the aforementioned two) you’ve got a ripsnorter of an album.

The only pity is that a couple of tunes aren’t fully realised, and are little underdone, but once you listen to this at head splitting volume a couple of times, and then maybe a couple more, you’ll come to the conclusion I did. Sure they sound like Sparta at times, but fuck, Sparta are great, and, as in Gyroscope’s case, if you can be heavier than them, then why the fuck not? You’re onto a good thing.

Jaymz Clements