2007, Hope Division
Olympia's Emergencies opens with a catchy belting of “break down before the catastrophe,” setting the pace for the latest from this vaguely post-hardcore group. Throughout, the guitars remain fairly rough and distorted — hey, at least they're consistent! At times, Emergencies suffers from being too loud and overblown, but the band is at the very least confident.
Olympia could definitely benefit from slowing down their pace during tracks, or at least more than the once encountered in “Who's Bad Party Time,” which would be more of a positively influencing track if it didn't sound like the vocals were recorded in an empty bathroom. Reverb is an excellent tool — when it's done correctly, and there's a certain failure here that doesn't help the album any.
Olympia isn't terribly unique, but they're not unbearable. For fans of the style, Emergencies shapes up to be a good release with some interesting approaches to vocal harmonies and some catchy riffs, and really what more can you ask from a band with track titles like “Even Rome Had Sewers” and “Olympia is a Motherfucker?” This group doesn't try to offer groundbreaking material, nor do they hope to inspire deep introspection, judging from their music.
But it's not bad: Emergencies is one of those albums with the catchiest of riffs and lyrics, and that's sure to impress a slew of teenagers and will undoubtedly win a few fans outside of that crowd.