When Seven Collar T-shirt first started playing in the underground circuit about 10 years ago, they were considered the most boring band to watch. This was a time when post-hardcore heavyweights like Prana and Lyme were hitting unsuspecting gig-goers with their exploding breakbeats and apocalypse-now-screamo rap metal. Seven Collar T-shirt sets revolved around slow burning jams and moody vocals. Instead of capitalising on power chords they did guitar texturing and solos; instead of aggression they wore depression with a smile.
The album opener ‘TET Offensive’, proficient demonstrates how SCT are as musicians. If their 1999 debut Freeway Dreaming & Broke was more of a compilation of pre-SCT songs and 2004’s Drones was their coming of age, then The Great Battle seals their place in the tricky world of adult rock.
Thankfully, for all of the added propulsion, SCTS never fully discarded their devotion towards atmospherics. And how could they, with Saiful Ridzuan’s (aka Duan) shivering falsettos and Ham’s sparkling guitar work so tailor-made for such euphoria? ‘Fibres’ is the album’s centrepiece, with endless reverb channelling an astonishing quantity of OK Computer-type despondence, while ‘The Foreigner’ is a gem of an acoustic-fronted track, painstakingly coated in world-weary resolution.
