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RSI: Reality Sets In

I dunno. I played it three times to be sure, but this is pretty much throwing shapes culled from Punk Rock 101. RSI are three energetic guys who recorded this album to ADAT in their Christchurch practice room. The guitarist is overly fond of pick-scraping and throws them in before each change, the drums pummel away with the snare on every beat of the bar, the singer is too often buried in the mix as he bangs on about dysfunction and how hard life is. The cover and album title at least accurately reflect the nature of the content with a guy seemingly in a state of despair. The musicianship is fine but unfortunately RSI do too little to differentiate between tunes or to make their songs memorable. The monochromatic approach may be symptomatic of being a young band whose compositional powers are still developing or could point to a greater malaise of having limited imagination. Still, if it's 25 minutes of punk angst you crave find out more at www.rsi.co.nz.