Album Review: Balance and Composure - Acoustic 7"

After the success of Balance and Composure’s 2011 album, "Separation", the band has issued an acoustic 7-inch EP (that will also be available digitally), featuring reworked versions of three of the album’s tracks.

First up is the album’s title-track, while there’s no denying that it is a great song and hasn’t been made worse by the shift to the acoustic dynamic, it’s less a reimagining and more a transposition. In fact, it’s an accusation that can be levelled at two of the three tracks on show here. It’s only "More to Me", which seems like a separate entity, in which B&C haven’t just played exactly the same version of the song with lo-fi instruments.

Despite this, "Stonehands" manages to retain and improve on its haunting sound – it’s the song that is most suited to this stripped-back approach, and could, and perhaps should, have been an acoustic number in the first place.

The acoustic 7-inch is something that will appeal and appease fans, but don’t go into it expecting to hear anything too different. If you have something that worked first time around, there’s little incentive to change it too much, but it does come off smacking a bit of ‘playing it safe’, and the band could have taken more of a risk, both with the arrangements and song choice.

Nevertheless, it’s three good songs in a row – and that ain’t bad.

3/5

Balance and Composure's "Acoustic 7"" is released on April 24th through No Sleep Records.

Nick Robbins