HERD of US - Your Girlfriend's a Bitch...

HERD of US

Your Girlfriend's a Bitch...
self-released; 2016

​3.5 out of 5

By Jamie Funk

Paul J Muschinski (vocals/guitars), Mike Wood (bass/vocals), Greg "Mudd" Lowther (drums) are Herd of Us. The band's four-song EP entitled Your “Girlfriend's a Bitch​.​.​.” revolves around distorted guitar, steady bass lines and hard-hitting drums. The band keeps it simple. It’s in 4/4 time and the chords stick to mostly major and minor. 

​They open with “deadcoldsoberstrange” and the song veers toward punk and rock. If the music was a little more intense and aggressive they might be getting close to hitting the vibe of the Dropkick Murphys. The vocals are also distorted here and it sounds better on the chorus than it does on the verse. 

Up next is “Linger.” The vocals are clean this time right around. As with the last song the strength of the song is the vocal harmonies. The music seems to just serve the vocals. There really isn’t much going on besides the very minimal of what a standard three-piece band needs to provide. In this case it worked out fine. 

“Too Many Sarahs” while another catchy yet simple song  has some minor issues. Mostly that the vocalist hits a number of notes that are noticeably off-key. The same thing could be said about the closer “The Ballad of Sam the Monkey” which as the name suggests is more of a ballad. All things considered the vocalist does sound good but just needs to do some tweaking in my opinion

The competition is stiff out there for bands to get noticed and you really have to bring something new to the table to gain a large audience. I think the songs are well composed and catchy on this EP but I would have liked to hear this band push their technical and creative abilities a bit more.

This is a short EP that builds a foundation. It’s a good start and I hope to hear the band evolve on their next effort

Tweet