KYOTO DRIVE - This Is All We Ever Wanted

Kyoto Drive - This Is All We Ever Wanted

10 songs
44:08 minutes
***** *
Engineer

Bandpage

English band Kyoto Drive emerged from the remains of two hardcore bands from Birmingham. The four musicians decided to continue in a softer vein, playing music containing elements of pop, rock and punk. Active since 2005, they released a first EP in 2008, before the first longplayer came out this year.

This Is All We Ever Wanted comes with ten quite nice songs that nearly all happen to please. Sometimes they act with pep, other times melancholy and sweet melodies set the tone. Even though Kyoto Drive come from the United Kingdom, their music, which reminded me of Blink 182 and Jimmy Eat World, seems to be made for the American market.

As pleasant as this may sound, I had to draw the yellow card twice. For one thing they don’t have a sufficient amount of ideas at their disposal to guarantee suspense throughout the three quarters of an hour playing time. Too many ideas are repeated, causing a certain sense of monotony towards the end of the album. Another criticism is the fact that not all the songs maintain the same quality level. Are You Taking Me Apart has become too mellow, and the concluding Waiting starts with an overly long acoustic part that seems taken straight from Extreme’s More Than Words. The song’s latter half is fortunately more vivid, but doesn’t change the fact that it takes too long to ignite.

Kyoto Drive are more than able to play a couple of good songs, but their potential is still too limited to guarantee for uninterrupted listening pleasure. Maybe the younger generation will see things differently, as the band rarely sounds adult.

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