Listen to some border-hopping rock on the four-band split State Line Machine
Spanning the borders of some of this countries’ first states, Dullest Records got together some of the east coast’s best post-punks for State Line Machine, a 4-way split featuring songs from Philly’s Easy Creatures (featuring members of One Up and Walleye) Son & Heir (ex-Boysetsfire) and Hold Down The Ocean and Delaware’s Worth.
Easy Creatures kicks off the comp with a declaration that it’s “time to put [their] thought on the page,” sliding into “Dark Dreams” to display a sound that may work a little too well on the next Tony Hawk Pro Skater game. It restrains itself from getting overly aggressive, creating poised spurts of anger to describe anxiety-filled nights of worry and restlessness. Hold Down The Ocean comes up next and quickly situates themselves into a modern rock head space of 2007, jamming through the palm-muted epic “A Story From The Halfway House: The Gulf Of Mexico,” before taking a left turn to a slow molding mostly-acoustic ballad of “The Underdog.”
Son & Heir kick off the second half by busting into an almost Metallica-like riff, keeping the bass heavy and the guitars nimble, eventually fading into the most expansive track on the split ‘Where Light May Lead,” a 6+ minute epic blending of modern and post rock to create some head-bobbing goodness. Worth takes the tail end to close with aggression, as their growling sound and bouncing guitars make me want to start a pit here in the office. The final track “Relax” does quite the opposite as grooving bass keeps the track on edge through its quintessential punk vocals mixed with guitar that would somehow work on a classic Aerosmith track.
Overall, each band brings their own little quirk to the harder side of rock, accumulating in a refreshing split proving the east coast does ALL rock so freaking well.