Review Summary: New Christian talent tick all the right boxes and show huge promise – one to watch.
When you pick apart ‘This Is Rescue’, it’s obvious that My Epic are a young band with a lot going for them. In one way, they sound like they have a lot more experience than they do, so keen are they to explore different influences – a route often only gone down once an aging band has begun to wear out their core sound – and yet have an endearing youthful exuberance and vigour with which they do their work. Mostly, this is a strength. It’s refreshing to hear a sound so up-front and honest, and evidently as talented as this. The vibe given off is of a band that know they can make great music, and they do just that from the off with ‘Shadows’, a heady mix of both brash power chords and wonderful ambience on guitar, punctuated with a chaotic drumbeat that never stays in the same place, ever changing pace or being imbued with (yet another) technical flourish. Very suddenly, the ambience changes – these disappear and an almost out-of-place piano strikes up an accompaniment to the enchanting vocals (he is master of both the powerful and the wistful; told you they were impressive), before the central chord blasts us back into the sound that came before the intermission.
It’s exciting to see such fiery talent, but therein lies the problem. They are keen to exercise their ability in a diverse an area of music as possible – perhaps overly so. Yes, the key sound is well done, a punk-ey alt-rock-ey noise, passionate yet expertly executed and it keeps all the energy that goes with the main elements of such a mix while introducing a stirring ambience overlay. Sometimes it’s a clunky gear change from this central sound to a prog-reminiscent bit (and it can be broken down into these ‘bits’, is my point), and doesn’t quite make it the flashbang entrance for a new idea that it could be. Other times, the instrumentation is trying to be
too impressive. The soundscape here is constantly in flux, the riff altered, even replaced constantly, the beat itself variable and yet never quite the same twice. That they can pull off so much stuff is, for now, a strength and a weakness - too often it amounts to distraction and detraction, particularly from the songwriting. And this songwriting deserves no such hinderance – it’s refreshingly and unashamedly bare-faced Christian, putting up no disguises, watering it down or interweaving it with more familiar topics, and that only makes its sharpness more direct and clever. The honesty of it is very appealing. More importantly, it gives this exhibit of musicianship a dynamic, a soul desperate to show the world what it can do.
If they get it right, ‘My Epic’ could indeed fulfil their epic (hurr hurr) amounts of potential. They have demonstrated their adeptness and excellence in many different areas of music, have shown that they’re keen to continue doing so and have bright-eyed vivaciousness that brings a smile to the face and a dash of hotsauce to their music. What they must do is master themselves – get the transitions right, calculate and evenly apply their technical ability and allow that rousing Christian sentiments to take the spotlight and not get crowded up. But all of that will come with age and experience anyway; and when it does, ‘My Epic’ will surely be a simply superb band. Keep both of your eyes on this one folks, because they really are going places.
