Against the Current - Fever EP review

New York pop rock trio Against the Current have presented us with a new set of songs, which are promised to be the first in a double EP. I wanted to take an in-depth look at this release as the band’s mix of synth-pop and rock didn’t really work for me before. (See Past Lives and In Our Bones.) However these new songs have really been standing out to me.

There were three singles preceding this seven track project starting with “weapon,” a track I feel very strongly about. It has that pop sensibility but does a lot with it. The gang vocals that still feel in tuned to a DIY sound despite how big the EP itself is trying to be, we change up an instrumental bridge to all acoustic at a point. There is a very cool moment vocally where all music stops and, isolated, Chrissy Costanza sings;

“I always say I hate the way you look at me now”

Basically by herself and it kicks right back in just before the line ends. Which is such a short moment but adds so much to the song and how interesting it can be. The pre-chorus on this track is huge and I think bigger than the chorus itself, similar to Bring Me the Horizons’ “Teardrops” from last year.

There was a lot to unpack in the second single, “again&again.” The riff here is so compelling it sounds sort of like they played it on a killswitched, cut it up and left it and sort of makes you turn your head if maybe you were going to skip it. The verses are bass driven above all else with that cut up riff still going just in the background and you of course hear it but the bass line is what ties it all together. The track also, to me, had the best lyricism between the three singles, see lines like;

“How did silence get so loud?”

There is a feature here by guardin, an artist I’m in no way familiar with but their performance here is so back and forth. At first they’re almost slurring on their words then they come in really strong midway through only to lose it again toward the end? Certainly not really selling me on going to check out their stuff.

The third single, “that won’t save us” opens this thing and kind of grew on with the full release of the EP. It has the catchy pop and arena rock feeling and this very interesting bridge where guitar and bass sort of blend together seamlessly. It has this outro with a huge drum fill that sounds made for those big amphitheaters. That of course isn’t to say the track isn’t without it’s problems. The track has this very shoehorned lyric in that bridge;

“Are you proud of what we’ve come to be? We’re sorry but that won’t save us”

Which just feels like it’s trying so hard to put the title in your face again. (&again) I wouldn’t say this is the worst track here, in fact it serves as a good intro, but it’s just fine and it isn’t very unique compared to some of the others.

After the singles we have the rest of the EP flowing with all new tracks beginning with “Jump” that I think are one of the two strongest moments on the whole release. It could hit even harder than “weapon” in terms of the overall performance. This was also the moment I realized that this is still the same band. In the past they were just more solo pop driven and maybe didn’t have a lot to contrast them from other bands in the same vein and now they are tighter and more united. I do have to call out the lyrics here though, which would probably hit you hard if you were going through something rough personally but they’re also so very general in fact the phrase “HopeCore” comes to mind. Not something uncommon but for a band in the scene to put out a track so seemingly out of touch with any real experience it just seems odd. The bridge here is also arena rock to a fault with it’s cut up drums and it just feels like it’s trying to manufacture a moment in a large room.

In contrast to “Jump,” “Shatter” is one of the most personal and vulnerable moments lyrically but leaves a lot to be desired instrumentally. Similar to what I praised on “again&again” it has this cut up guitar riff but that’s what the entire song is and while I feel like every record needs that ballad and brake I don’t feel it meshes with this batch of songs. I want to breeze by “Burn it Down” as well because it is similar to “Jump” in that this feels very Against the Current to me but it’s just crazy general in it’s lyricism we even drop a “bite the hand that feeds you” in here. Not to say there’s no stand out lines;

“Burn it down cause we outgrew this house.”

Is a really good one but I don’t get who we’re doing this motivational speech wording for.

Before we get into why “Lullaby” is the crown jewel on this whole thing I do have a nitpick here as well. Immediately as the track opens we have yet another of these shoehorned lyrics that opens mid thought. The delivery on the line itself is sultry in a way and even works later in the track in the post-chorus and is backed by a nice guitar chord but, for me, doesn’t work in the intro of the song. Outside of all that though, the track offers a beautiful duality with its somber verses and huge chorus. I’ve been attacking Chrissy’s lyrics this entire record but in this song we have lines like;

“How the Hell you dreaming when the world’s a nightmare?”

Which is such a simple thought but could just anyone could have put the thought in a clever way like that? This song even has the big moment bridge like every other song but it works here? In many ways I feel like this track had to be the blueprint. It had to have come first. Everything I’ve attacked this entire review is present in this last song but it works all of a sudden and maybe some other moments were attempted recreations.

Right now it's very big to attempt to be My Chemical Romance, see AS IT IS, see Yours Truly, etc. Not that I’m trying to downplay those bands and their new material but it’s been feeling very stale. On this record (and frankly any record of the genre for that matter) we aren’t reinventing the wheel instrumentally but we have a personality that a lot of others are lacking. Is this an EP of the year contender? Maybe not. It is above average though and it asks a bigger question. Did this win me over on Against the Current? Did this make me anticipate the next release when in the past I wouldn’t jump to it right away? Yes, especially if that is the second half of an unfinished thought. This won me over as a fan. It has its highs and lows as I pointed out but there’s not really a bad song here.