Album Review: Safe, So Simple - 'Too Close To Closure'

There are only so many words that you can add ‘core’ on the end off until the music world reaches peak cringe. Easycore is one of the youngest core terms (coined back in the early noughties) and it’s also one of the most loved or hated genres around, depending on which side of the musical fence your opinion lives on. The sub-genre is even more polarising than metalcore or deathcore, if you can even believe that. With the rise of pop-punk as a genre and bands like Four Year Strong, A Day To Remember, Set Your Goals, and Chunk, No Captain Chunk, easycore has gained a lot of momentum and thus we get bands like Safe, So Simple.

Now to be fair, these guys aren’t that bad of a band, as these songs aren’t terrible, instead they are rather fun. Well, to a point. But Safe, So Simple are a very generic group at that, and funnily enough, their moniker exemplifies their music - safe and simple. And as it's easycore, a genre change may be in order here, guys.

Why though? Because there simply isn’t enough that can be done with this style that the bands mentioned in the above paragraph haven’t already done before and to a much better extent. It’s the same problem this writer has with an Aussie band by the name of No! Not The Bees (which is still the best line from that fuck awful movie, The Wicker Man) - when a genre of music has next to no leeway in creativity or originality. If you can't push past what other, better bands have done then, well, why bother?

This five track EP (well four tracks, as the title track is just a one minute sound bite) can only really be recommended to the die-hard, serious fans of this style. Sure, it is short and it doesn't overstay its welcome, unlike that one aunty we all have. But the brevity of it is really its saving grace. The catchy melodies, both in the vocals and the riffs, and the breakdowns and screams are the central focus of the music and that's all this EP ever offers, but in a format that's been done much better before. Oh, and there's synth, did we say there's synth thrown in? Well, there's synth 'cause of course there fucking is. Lyrically, it’s all a bit standard for the style. In fact, that really sums up this EP as a whole; standard and basic.

The popular idea that this is the revival of easycore is fine in theory. But the problem is that this music just doesn’t ever go deep enough musically. It’s why A Day To Remember have been plateaued hard with their last effort; it’s why Four Year Strong wrote ‘In Someway, Shape, Or Form’; it’s why Chunk, No Captain Chunk's first record was laughably cheesy and why they followed it up with 'Pardon My French'. Easycore is seriously restrictive and there’s a reason it died away.

1. Do Or Do Not, There Is No Try

2. Ghosts In My Backseat

3. Teeth Like Sharks

4. Too Close To Closure

5. Welp, Better Luck Next Year