LONG DISTANCE CALLING is a fairly new instrumental five piece with two guitars, bass, drums and “ambience”. The guitars have a pastoral feel that is not too different from other instrumental groups such as PELL MELL or THE REDNECK UNDERGROUND. This implies clean guitar with no effects other than like the smallest hint of reverb. Then of course the distortion kicks in when things get heavy. Yet the only metal leaning here is the use of the double bass pedal on the drums. LDC’s bio makes mention of the fact that it’s members all played in much heavier ensembles. Yet they eschew the blatant over-the-top influence of metal that voiceless acts such as SUZUKITON and THE FUCKING CHAMPS are more liable to embrace.

I’m not sure if it’s because this group is newer, but there are some shortcomings here. After two close listenings, it appears to me that this disc suffers slightly from tedium. Each piece of music contains quite a bit of dynamic flow yet after a couple of listens they all sound a little too much alike. It’s almost as if the band that appears to be avoiding a formula has a formula. Most of it revolves around the mid-paced tempo’s that at some point are tom-tom propelled. When the guitars get distorted, it almost always sounds the same rhythmically. It appears that the use of more effects on the clean guitars would help. It’s not as if one can expect UNIVERSE ZERO or BIOTA on such a new project, but here’s hoping that this will morph into a little of something more next time.

- Herring

OFFICIAL SITE: myspace.com/longdistancecalling

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