I KILLED THE PROM QUEEN officially announced their break up two years ago (April 2007), probably due to them getting sick of replacing band members (according to Wikipedia, they couldn’t find a new singer and guitar player around that time). Anyway, a year after the break-up, they got back together for one final tour, and “Sleepless Nights and City Lights” is the live recording of the show, in IKTPQ’s home town of Adelaide, Australia.

Before I begin, I have say that I’m fundamentally biased against live albums by bands that don’t have at least 5 studio records to their name. It’s a pet peeve of mine. When a relatively new band decides to release a live album, it makes me wonder whether or not it’s a cash grab. I also hate Metalcore for the most part, so take this review with a massive pile of salt.

Being a live album, there are two things that must be considered. The songs played, and their performance. This sounds like run of the mill Metalcore with very predictable riffs, song structures, breakdowns, etc, so generally speaking, this appeals to me as much as unanesthetised surgery. I can’t really comment on what songs they should have picked over others because I don’t really know the band (nor do I care), but as a whole, the album sounds pretty similar and when you’ve heard one IKTPQ song, you’ve heard them all.

I have to mention the performance, though...There are times, where the playing is SLOPPY as hell, I’m not talking about a musician making a small mistake like hitting the wrong note. I’m talking about an entire riff being played slightly off time with the drums, and being played extremely muddily. This doesn’t set good precedent for the album, especially since the first occurrence of poor playing happens in the first song. There are more instances where the music degenerates into a smorgasbord of bad playing, and to be honest, I find it inexcusable. There are also some slight problems with the mix, where sometimes one guitar is drastically lower than the other, and it hurts the performance that IKTPQ is supposed to be showcasing.

I guess the band’s heart was in the right place in releasing this record and saying goodbye to their fans, but I never cared for IKTPQ as I found them interchangeable with nearly every band in their genre of music, but I have to mention how bad the musicians’ playing is at some points on the record.

I never found IKTPQ to be any good, and this didn't change my mind.

(Online May 12, 2009)