I think this is the strangest band I had to review in my life, or the least known. If you google Summer Reading you will find nothing about this band, it might be simply their name or maybe they are not “real”. I’m thinking that they just recorded some music together to have fun and then uploaded it to Bandcamp, where the only info they have there is that they are from Boston, Massachusetts. That is not right, even if they just wanted to make music for fun, some people like me would appreciate some more information on the band.
I just wanted to make that clear, we live in a world full of contacts, networking, and you need to be socially active to have a chance to get noticed and make it big.
Now let’s talk about the music:
When you say a band is Folk Acoustic Rock because the main instruments are an acoustic guitar and the lead voice, you have to be careful because not every band or solo artist get this trick right. You need to master that, you need to have a great song, great lyrics and a lot of feeling to capture that on your recording. It’s not easy. Summer Reading sometimes reminds me of a very young Chris Carrabba from Dashboard Confessional, it is something in their voices that drives me to those years.
I really liked the way they play the banjo and saxo, two instruments not used very much in Folk Acoustic Rock. I have to say though, that I really believe that this band writes good songs and have a lot of potential. The only thing I would like to see done differently the next time they record something (and hopefully they do) is to work harder on the production of the songs. They have cool ideas, but I think that with a greater budget and a better record producer they could really draw the songs inside their head a whole lot better.
Good EP.
7/10
Track Listing:
1. Mt. Moriah
2. Wild Teeth
3. Renaissance
4. Heart Of Stone
5. Northern Land
6. The Tide
Related Links:
Summer Reading on Bandcamp