With a cover that's dangerously close to Alice In Chains' 'Black Gives Way To Blue', Exit State are here with their second album which splatters out of your speakers with a little bit of everything, just to make sure they cover all ground.

Opening track, 'Enough Already', makes you think that they could be going down the aggressive glam path such is their sound (a good start) but tracks such as 'In That Place', 'Out In The Rain' and 'Circles' are a little more close to the reality - heavy pop punk emo songs that the likes of the current hip scenesters would record....whoever that is this week....
 

'Check Out The Crazy' is more of what I was expecting, a heavier riff and groove that grown men can be proud of and snarl at whilst banging their head to, yet seemingly never happy with one sound up pops 'Ten Years Later' that turns the groove and heaviness right off and suddenly they've morphed into Mr Big? Now in no way is it a bad song, it's just a little bit of a departure from the whole of the rest of the album to the point that you have to question its inclusion. 'All For You' nods heavily to AIC's slow, atmospheric song writing style and adds guitars from special guest Gizz Butt (Prodigy) but it's just another example of a bit of a mish mash of styles.

In no way is this a bad disc but I genuinely am not sure what direction they want to go in. There's a little too much music on here that doesn't quite fit in with the general style that seems to be their basis. If this was an EP that trimmed the fat, I'm sure this review would be a lot more positive than it sounds because they're not as bad as this maybe suggests.

www.exitstate.com

And for the record, unless your brother is Pele, Maradona or the legend that is Pascal Cygan, it's not really relevant to your band's promo.