Socratic

Socratic have a flair for the dramatic. They admit that they’ve tried to write songs that sound like mini rock operas and for the most part, they’ve succeeded. Now the world needs to decide if that’s a good thing or not. Their debut album, Lunch for the Sky, doesn’t do subtle. With crowded arrangements that push piano into the mix to accompany the guitars, every song tries to have that anthemic quality, which might be a good thing at a live show but falls a little flat on a studio recording. The biggest problem, however, are the lyrics, which try so hard to be earnest and just mean something that it is almost painful to listen to them at times. It doesn’t help they’re delivered so nonchalantly that the singer seems detached from the whole proceedings; kind of ironic for an emo band. Lunch for the Sky isn’t the worst album ever recorded, but it isn’t the best either. People who like this kind of thing will really like this. Everyone else will recognise it as over-written, over-played, overdone melodrama and move onto something more valuable instead.