One Last Match - Black Ink Breakdown
If you’ve been missing the sound of brash, indie-leaning rock with screeching guitar solos, growled vocals and strident rhythms, then you need look no further than One Last Match, the debut album from four-piece Black Ink Breakdown.
Online, you will find Black Ink Breakdown labelled as alt rock, punk and alt country. Whilst the two former genres are here in abundance, I struggle to find much in the way of country. Infrequent steel guitar nods gently to the south, but the main drive here is big electric guitar and thick rolling drums. The vocals can at times sound stuck at the turn of the millennium, but vocalist Jay Rapp possesses a surprisingly versatile range, allowing for anthemic choruses and stripped-back acoustic tones as well as gruff, goth-infused punk-rock. The variety of tones is competently melded, but not as chaotic as it could be – or perhaps as I would like it to be. Ultimately, I find it hard to connect with or get excited by many of these songs.
A shift in gear towards the middle of the album takes things down a few notches, and the latter half becomes the stronger half, mixing in acoustic textures and classic Latin-rock. Detached, soothing vocals add the warmth that was missing from the workmanlike first half of the album, creating a more eclectic and interesting sound.
Overall, One Last Match is a rock album, and one that would have sat happily in CD racks circa 2001, with the singles featuring on summer Kerrang! compilations and late night MTV Rocks playlists. Whilst this is by no means the heaviest record to come out of Oregon, it does pack a punch, particularly when invoking the spirits of late 80s–mid 90s rock and metal. Leave the head-banging to other artists and albums; this is more of an enthusiastic nod than a whiplash-inducing rebirth.