g-clef

Review

Gunk Pop is how Black Ends describe themselves, and you that's honestly pretty accurate. They have a mixed sound, grunge influence, sludgy vocals, even a bit of Nu Metal. Whatever genre they're pulling from it feels right out of the 90s. It's not clean, even a little bit, the vocals are grimy but still have something to show for themselves, the guitar is messy but can hit some really satisfying riffs. The drums are the cleanest thing here, and they still have this messy, purposefully quiet mixing, that just builds this vibe that you're in a musty bar listening to this group perform. I agree with them in creating a new name for this genre because it really doesn't perfectly fit into anything. It's not energetic enough to be grunge, it's too punky and respectable to be nu metal. It's in this in-between state that is well, gunky. The first few songs really hit an itch that is very specific, but they seem to know exactly where to itch. After the begining the tracks start to get somewhat monotonous, bad, but they begin to fold in on themselves to the point that they're somewhat hard to differentiate. It seems like they had enough to make a great EP but had to stretch it to an album. I think they're a quality act, with a lot of potential, maybe they should just work or refining their sound a little and working on creating more unique hooks for each song, I think that would do a lot of good.