Spectres - Last Days Lp (Whisper in Darkness records)

Not having heard anything from British Columbia's Spectres after their two decent 7" EP's on Whisper in Darkness records from a few years ago, I wasn't sure whether this band was still active. With this new release (their first full-length Lp) I'm glad to find that they are indeed still around.

Those first two 7"-es presented Spectres as a band heavily drawing on post-punk/new wave as their main musical influence (especially the much heard and obvious comparissons to Ian Curtis' vocals). Stylistically and lyric-wise, Spectres is more in peace-punk territory. Together with several other bands from Canada and the Western part of the United States (most notably The Estranged, Surrender, Signal Lost, Complications, and recently also Arctic Flowers) Spectres seem to be part of somewhat of a peace-punk revival going on in recent years (though on a very small scale I might add). Fans of the aformentioned bands should definitely check this out as well.

On this new Lp, the two aforementioned influences are again overtly present. As on their EP's, the obvious comparison here is Joy Division, but also The Mob and Crisis serve as pretty good indications of what Spectres sound like. On their myspace page they also list as their influences (amongst others) The Sound, The Cure and Killing Joke: influences which I also definitely hear in their bleak and melodic brand of punk. In fact, I would say Spectres follow the blueprint of the aforementioned genres pretty much to a tee. Does that make 'Last Days' a bad record? Surprisingly: not at all. Though somewhat formulaic, the songs on 'Last Days' do manage to keep my attention throughout the record, and after quite some listens over the past two weeks, they're starting to comfortably nestle themselves in the back of my mind.

Of the 8 songs on this Lp, stand out tracks to me are the anti-war tune 'Our Time' which features dual screamed and sung vocals that add some extra agression to the song. ("we've seen it twice before / soldiers on the front lines won't come home') Also, the last two songs on the record 'Standing East' and 'Nazca' are personal favourites here.

You can download the entire record from the collective blog run by Taken by Surprise records and Sabotage records, of which the latter will be releasing the Lp in Europe, together with New Dark Age records. For those of you who are interested, you can also find the entire new The Estranged Lp on there, which will be released later this year.

Note: the picture of the cover of the record used here, is a picture of the European pressing of the record. My copy on Whisper in Darkness is largely the same, except for the fact that the bandname and title of the record are both set in a different type than on the European version shown here.