Perfect Disguise Reviewed

To celebrate the official release of "Perfect Disguise: Introducing The Contrast" you will find below an excerpt of a review that floated into my inbox this morning. It comes from a MySpace blog that specialises in reviewing the kind of underground garage that The Contrast produce. If you want to read the whole thing check it out here
The edited highlights are below:

I received a copy of Perfect Disguise: Introducing the Contrast almost a week before the official US release, so I was pretty excited to review a release that was not yet available. They're a great guitar driven powerpop four piece from Middleborough (Editor comments: actually that's Peterborough), Cambridgeshire, UK. This release is full of shimmery guitars, great melodies that are unique, short songs, all really catchy stuff.

Perfect Disguise is full of great songs. From the opening "Mystery 1" starts off with a catchy guitar riff that tells you to pay attention to them, "Can't Stand the Light" has a slower feel with some great jangle guitars and a few other surprises that you're going to have to listen to it to find out. The Contrast are a band that have combined the best elements of different bands into something their own. Off the top of my head, I can think of The Buzzcocks, The Bangles, The Plimsouls, and The Stranglers with Tom Petty and Paul Weller writing the songs together, with a good touch of The Smithereens. With great influences, the work retains its own and doesn't sound like anyone else because great powerpop relies on the tried and true: Simple chords, great guitar hooks that get you interested, some great harmonies, and a beat that you can't help nodding your head along with in the least, as well as obvious references to bands that came before. However, almost every song on Perfect Disguise is unique and memorable. Most of the songs will have something different in them that makes you stop and listen, from the higher pitched guitar bridge on "Caught In a Trap" to the occasional voice only song closings like "Ansaphone". Lead singer David Reid's vocals are really hard to place, but have a deep, resonant quality that although quite different both in tone and range, rises above a foundation of great music where each player has their own distinction and lead, much like Roger Daltrey's voice emerged as a competitor to his fellow bandmates during the height of The Who...

...Perfect Disguise: Introducing The Contrast lives up to its title. The songs are mostly older and repackaged since they didn't get their due when they were originally released, but because of their lack of exposure and new release on a record label with a lot more recognition, this signals "The Contrast has arrived. Hear for the first time what you've been missing."