New York band Before We Sink take us on a nostalgic trip back to the good old days of late 1990s and early 2000s punk with a catchy melodic punk sound they describe as “To. The. Point.”
The band, from Warwick, NY, began with a couple of guys meeting while playing together in another band, which only practiced occasionally, and it was clear it wasn’t going to be overly serious. They got together and decided to start writing music inspired by the punk rock they grew up listening to. And, despite it taking a little while to click, in their words, “after a few beers, the music started coming together.”
And on what they’ve created since, the band told us: “Before We Sink’s sound is best described as straight-up, no frills songs filled with raw lyrics, punchy guitars and catchy choruses.”
Our first taste of this is their debut release, The After Hours EP, which came out at the end of June. From it, the band sent us the fourth track All On Me, which opens up with lively drums and high-pitched guitars that are joined by a cool little lick. That drops into echoey vocals with rolling drums gradually building the intensity before flowing into a big catchy chorus “I’m writing this out today, Never sat comfortably, I’m feeling so numb when you said, ‘This is just typically what you’d expect of me,’ It’s over, It’s all on me now.” A second chorus gives way to laid-back guitars, before echoey vocals lead into a final blast of the chorus.
On the track, the band told us: “Honestly, the reaction was a bit surprising. We were very happy with the way that this song came out, but really expected people to first recognize some of the other songs on the EP. So it was a pleasant surprise when people started to gravitate to and appreciate this song. If you haven’t listened to it yet, expect a punchy singalong chorus that kind of catches you by surprise, surrounded by verses that are like peaks and valleys, so to speak, to balance the song out.”
The EP offers plenty more where that came from. It starts out with excellent opening track Wash Out that slowly builds up to an engaging chorus, followed by the faster paced Lessons in Landmines, the more pop-punk sounding Waiting To Begin, before concluding with the lively Fell Apart.
On the EP, they told us: “Exciting is the perfect word. It’s been a dream of all of ours to write and release our own music. We spent a lot of time, a lot of late nights writing and recording this EP, so to see it finally released for literally the world to hear is something that we are really proud of. Expect a sound that you don’t necessarily see as much as you used to. Something that, especially in our small town, we’d like to see more of: A trip back to the late 90s and early 2000s punk.”
The Before We Sink sound is inspired by a wide range of bands, including the likes of Alkaline Trio, Hot Water Music, The Ataris and The Bouncing Souls.
And on what inspires them to write music, the band told us: “If you are looking for happy songs filled with vacation-themed visuals in a carefree fairytale, you’ve come to the wrong place. We pull influences from the everyday struggles people may face, whether they are big or small, concepts and situations that when people feel most like they are down on their luck and alone, they can listen and think, ‘man, it’s not only me.'”
Before We Sink are currently working on securing live shows to get more involved in their local music scene, with a view to hopefully writing their first full-length record next year. And they added: “If you like what you hear let us know about it. We would like to be very engaged with social media and look forward to playing live in the very near future.”
You can follow Before We Sink on Facebook and Instagram, and check out their music on Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon Music and YouTube.
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