THE OTHER NEED ANOTHER VOCALIST

In case the cover art for their new album, New Blood, doesn’t make it clear — The Other are a horrorpunk band. Like pretty much all horrorpunk bands, it seems pretty clear that their biggest influence is the Misfits. I mean, just look at their singer, Rod Usher:

Not even subtle, is it? They’ve even got a picture of themselves with Jerry Only on their MySpace page:

So this band is hiding their Misfits influence like Airbourne are hiding their AC/DC influence, which is to say, only nine years old who have never heard of Misfits won’t see it right away.

And I’m totally fine with that. I love horrorpunk! And The Other write some catchy tunes, man. It’s not shockingly original, but I’d rather have all the goth kids listening to this than, uh… fuck, I dunno even know what those kids listen to know, but goth was barely tolerable when good bands (like The Cure) were dominating the scene, so I can only imagine what shit they’re passing for music now.

ANYWAY, I do have a problem with The Other, though, which is this: Rod Usher wants so very badly to be Glenn Danzig, and fails so very hard. He doesn’t sound tough, like his vocal chords are perpetually engaged in snarl, the way Danzig does… that whole Elvis influence isn’t coming through… really, it just sounds to me like a power metal vocalist with a stuffy nose. With a different singer, I kinda think this band might be a hundred times better.

But check The Others out for yourself and see what you think. New Blood is out now in Europse; SPV will release it here in North America on August 30.

-AR