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Demo Review

No Hope Astronaut
Demo

Article written by Philip R - Aug 12, 2005

What with the recent successful Mission of the Space Shuttle Discovery, astronauts are very big news at the moment. Discovery has been, in terms of science and technology, a triumphant and ground breaking project. No Hope Astronaut, however, are neither triumphant nor ground breaking in what they do and these are certainly not words to be offered up in describing this lumpen dirge of a demo. The band describe their music as "Alternacore" and "intense and therapeutic" but, frankly, dull and unlistenable would be far closer to the truth.

Perhaps I'm too old for this sort of thing; maybe if I were in my teens and my idea of rebellion was growing my hair long and not telling Mummy that I drank cider occasionally, this would be for me, but alas not.

Opener "One Day I Stopped Breathing" should be brilliant with a title like that - imagine what, say Idlewild or Maximo Park would have done with that - but No Hope Astronaut merely offer the listener insipid sub-standard metal that comes across like it wants to be a fusion of perhaps Muse and Metallica, but the end product here falls woefully short and fails to maintain any interest whatsoever. Chugging guitars + whiny vocals + screamy backing vocals = uninspiring, formulaic, heavy metal dross. Things wouldn't be so bad if there was at least a hint of melody here and there or if the vocals were ever occasionally audible but all three songs on this demo suffer the same problem. Repeated listens (God only knows, I've really tried to give this a chance) offer no hidden depth or substance.

On the plus side, the bass sounds all right and I imagine they'd be better live but generally No Hope Astronaut are more Columbia than Discovery.

Links:
http://www.nohopeastronaut.com/