EP Rockets and Bluelights Sounds Pretty Good

Not much is known about the project known as Rockets and Bluelights. In 2003 David Estabrook (drums), Rajesh Harde (guitar), Enoch Secovnie (guitar, vocals), Andrew Weaver (bass) released A Smashed City the band’s only release through Redder Records. This EP is one that strikes me as very generic at times with its influences. The band is seemingly heavily inspired by acts like The Jazz June. It’s not the most generic emo album I’ve listened too. This band definitely wears its influences on it sleeve. Let’s check out A Smashed Piano. I’m a big fan of the tone of this song. This band loves to switch up the riffs which I’m a big fan of in this song. The vocals are rather lackluster on this track and throughout the whole ep we really dont get too much of a beautiful vocal performance. However, the whole song could be written off as an instrumental The second song on this Andee is also the shortest song coming in at 3 minutes. It starts off with slower instrumentation, we go into feedback and this nice leading bass riff. The vocals on this song start off really soft and almost spoken word. Although this is a emo band we see a lot of math rock influences with complex arrangements in this song. It seems like this band did a really good job at crafting some heartfelt and emotionally longing arrangements but threw in some screamo. Closer to the end of the song I hear some Taking Back Sunday-esque vocals. The third track Forest Green and Autumn is like a longer version of the first two songs put together. This song like the other two experiment a lot of dynamics. Its really interesting how these melodies are strawn together. At times it can get boring to the ear. I was this band was able to craft some better vocal parts because I think it would help every song from sounding similar. The ones they do have arent bad, however, they are hard to hear in the mix. They add too the songs but the fact that there isnt consistent vocal parts almost takes away from the song. The last song We Bleed This In The Winter, is very similar to the last track in the way that there are complex back-and-forth guitars. It seems like every track is almost copying a different bands vocal stylings. This band loves to crank up the energy and then slow it down. I feel like they tried to be a more math rock version of I Hate Myself on this song. All in all, there are some clear highs on this ep like Andee. This isn’t a bad ep by any means. Emo music is all about putting yourself out there and staying true to yourself. I think this album accomplishes that and establishes a clear theme with the band. Its rather conceptual and not an easy listen. Its a shame this band stopped at this EP. I give this a 6/10 for Andee alone