What I love about PREMONITIONS OF WAY and EVERY TIME I DIE is the fact that they sound like they locked themselves in a studio and pummeled their instruments for a week until they came out with an album. There’s probably a term that real reviewers use to describe that properly. Is it “a sense of urgency”? Is that the right term? Anyways, that’s feeling I get from I HATE SALLY, even though they actually planned ahead before going to the studio.
The singer form this band, Dee Prescott tells me that I HATE SALLY gets compared to a lot of metal/hardcore bands, while she considers her own band to be more of a punk deal. This ain’t like any punk band I’ve ever heard! But is “Don’t Worry Lady” a metalcore album by conventional senses? It’s certainly heavy with lots of screaming and all those great things, but the discerning tr00 metal fan would certainly have some points to argue. I can say that I think fans of CONVERGE and THE DILLINGER ESCAPE PLAN might have a good understanding of what I HATE SALLY are attempting to portray.
Something that I HATE SALLY doesn’t do much of actually are many dissonant tones. They get their feeling of chaos with a few little different time signatures, and having chords and riffs that run up and down the neck in a seemingly random fashion. There’s a few big tempo changes, as well as the fact that the songs lack any verse/chorus format. I can also hear some crowd moving breakdowns hidden underneath all that action, but they don’t get anywhere near the single note variety. There are a few passages that actually remind me of ISIS a little, such as some of the more chord-laden or arpeggio passages that wander off a little bit. A few of the longer songs work some feedback into that wandering.
So I HATE SALLY is supposed to be punk (I think? I’m just going by what Dee told me man…) I’ll say that there’s more than likely a few fans who would completely get into “Don’t Worry Lady” if there was a tour package that included, let’s say some bands like, or similar to THE DILLINGER ESCAPE PLAN, CONVERGE, ISIS, BOTCH, COALESCE, CAVE IN, GAZA or DESTROYER DESTROYER. I HATE SALLY doesn’t sound quite like those bands, but they’ve probably already got a few people out there who don’t know they’re fans yet.
8/10
The Official I Hate Sally Website
I Hate Sally at MySpace
I Hate Sally at Underground Operations
