The Getaway Plan - Other Voices, Other Rooms

Only a few years into their musi­cal careers, and these dandy gen­tle­men have more going for them than most will in an entire life­time. Stamp Other Voices, Other Rooms as essen­tial listening.

There is no secret to the Get­away Plan for­mula. Their brand of post-hardcore is one lis­ten­ers have seen and heard many times before– Saosin, Armor for Sleep, Funeral for a Friend– all musi­cally sim­i­lar to Mel­bourne, Australia’s lat­est flex­ing their artis­tic mus­cle. Yet, as you lis­ten to the band’s full-length debut Other Voices, Other Rooms, there is a dis­tinct qual­ity that sep­a­rates them from their coun­ter­parts. It’s an intan­gi­ble qual­ity, one that can’t really be described by hyper­bole, lav­ish praise, and/or writ­er­s­peak, but unfor­tu­nately, aside from actu­ally lis­ten­ing to the record, it’s the only way to say how good it is. Yes, it’s post-hardcore, and yes, it sounds a lit­tle pol­ished, but unlike other local fare (Kiss­chasy, The Hot Lies to name a few), The Get­away Plan have urgency and musi­cal chops by the bag load.

The band’s sin­gles– “Street­light” and “Where The City Meets the Sea”- are your req­ui­site, big cho­rus, chunky gui­tar type songs, and will eas­ily grab casual lis­ten­ers into the fray. How­ever, it is when the band digs a lit­tle deeper into their emo­tional pock­ets that they truly find their sym­me­try. The album’s best is the mid-tempo, soar­ing melan­choly of “New Med­i­cine (Stay With Me)”; a lovelorn ode to, from what we can see/hear, the faith in fight­ing sick­ness. Then there is the more lit­eral tale of love in “A Lover’s Com­plaint,” backed by solid melodies, and vocal­ist Matthew Wright’s tow­er­ing voice, the song is the pin­na­cle of the band’s efforts; pow­er­ful, mov­ing, yet not overly sen­ti­men­tal and/or naïve.

Whether it is delv­ing into piano-oriented com­po­si­tion (“Red Flag”), or elec­tronic land­scapes (“Trans­mis­sion”), The Get­away Plan are more than capa­ble of pulling in ele­ments of other gen­res into their own. It makes for an enthralling lis­ten, and are the facets of the album that keep it from becom­ing stale and/or over­done. Only a few years into their musi­cal careers, and these dandy gen­tle­men have more going for them than most will in an entire life­time. Stamp Other Voices, Other Rooms as essen­tial listening.

(Boomtown Records)