Aspirations – EP!

I shouldn’t like this, I shouldn’t. I mean the entire scope of Aspirations‘ bio is: We sample shit… play bass & guitar over it… then yell a lot. One laptop + two mics = Party! Yeah, not the best bio out there and it doesn’t sound like anything I would normally even give a second glance to. But with Underground Operations backing them I gave them a second chance and somehow it works; and despite everything telling me I shouldn’t like EP!, I do.

The saving grace of Aspirations, and the reason I’m able to like it as much as I do, is the vocals. Normally, bands that use a laptop and samples as the main background music have these extremely polished vocals that are immensely annoying. – I’m talking about you Play Radio Play. There’s nothing there, no sincerity or emotion; just pro-tools splattered vocals that are bland and forgettable. Aspirations doesn’t fall victim to that and instead their vocals – from both members – are amazing.

The provider of the main set of pipes is Stuart McKillop and right from the opening growl of 10729 King George HWY (after you get past a slightly shaky thirty second introduction that doesn’t give off the best first impression) you hear that this could be something worth a listen. The vocals are worn and strong, there’s some of Jason Shevchuk of None More Black‘s style in there with Chad Michael Stewart ofMachete Avenue and some slight similarities to Art Barrios of Audio Karate. They are melodic hardcore vocals being sung overtop a very un-hardcore backdrop and that juxtaposition works. To further add to that juxtaposition is the second member and second vocalist, Kirsten Harris. Her vocals are much smoother similar to Lights or Tegan & Sara. The two contrasting pitches work well together whether they are singing against one another (Between Us) or just adding a soft set of background vocals into the mix (Paulus Crescent). The vocals are what makes the songs so good and it lets you look past the slightly overly electronic portions of certain songs (Paulus Crescent and Get Fucked both are a little heavy in the sampling department).

The real gem of the album is the closing cover of Jawbreaker‘s Accident Prone. Aspirations are able to straddle the line between adding their own unique spin to the track while still staying incredibly true to the original. Using, of course, a sample of the song with some of their own instruments added over top, the band successfully shows Schwarzenbach’s passion and emotion. The band leaves all the electronic elements that slightly cluttered some of the earlier tracks and goes for a rawer sound here, focusing more on the guitars and vocals. If they can recreate this sound on their full length without resulting to covers then nothing will be able to stop them.