Album Review: Pareto - Your Heart Is Ready For Home

Over the last few years, Scotland has been home to numerous bands sporting a particular Scottish vibe, embodied by the likes of Idlewild, Biffy Clyro, Twin Atlantic, The Xcerts, Frightened Rabbit and many more. In this context, newcomers Pareto's aim would be to create a relevant space musically for themselves to fit into their country's blossoming scene.

'Your Heart Is Ready For Home' diligently opens with "Castles", a track made of crunching guitars and crashing cymbals galore before breaking into familiar stop-start territory. The song often hints at math-rock aspects but the band manage to keep an uncanny catchiness mindless of the unusual time-signature. If the track sports some good ideas, sadly they are never fully brought to fruition. However, following track "Nothing Major, Something Sergeant" handles a similar dancey/math-rock vibe but installs a poppier pulse into it. The vocals feel less restrained than on their opener and the song benefits from the pop sensibilities in the song-writing. The track fades into an anthemic fist-pumping chant before suddenly breaking off.

The second half of the EP showcases the band's melodic edge as heard in "Points Win Prizes": a moodier piece that picks up guts (and guitar crunch) halfway through and reveals a heartier set of vocals enhanced by the string arrangements and added piano revealing the underlying softness of the track. Closer "Call Me Alphabet" makes good use of the band's experimenting with string arrangements. In fact, they end up working well in fleshing out the darker mood of the song and only compliment the sweet and vocally layered chorus. At the minute and a half mark, they unleash Scottish brand punch in glorious Biffy Clyro-esque fashion only to fade back to a palm-muted section presenting some of the band's more inspired writing.

Overall, Pareto seem to have found a comfortable stride after the release of their single in late 2009 and the EP shows some great versatility and a particular brand of "Scotrock" that is worthy of being listened to. The sound painfully suffers from some debatable mixing and the instruments could have benefited of tighter tone but if you're a sucker for Scotland's finest offerings, then you'd better keep your eyes open for these lads.

3.5/5

'Your Heart Is Ready For Home' by Pareto will be released on April 19th on White Label.

Pareto on MySpace

James Berclaz-Lewis