The Keep Aways website and press kits proudly proclaim that they're a band that just play punk rock, and that they don't need any gimmicks or anything to promote their music. There's a certain something in that sentiment that I can admire, gimmickry and publicity stunts in rock music are usually just flimsy covers for the fact that the product being promoted is no good; I mean, can you think of a single gimmick band that has lasted for more than a few months on the strength of their music?

So, The Keep Aways have that going for them, at least, their music isn't dragged down by any ill-advised gimmicks. Double points go to them for managing to avoid the "all-grrl" band cliché, and while it's definitely clear that the three members of the band are very female, they don't let it become one of the defining characteristics of their music. Sadly, this is one of the few admirable qualities of their music, because the rest of this release is quite uninspiring.

This might have something to do with the absolutely woeful production job, which makes it sound like the CD has been mastered by sticking a broken microphone somewhere in the general vicinity of a tape deck playing a copy of the real music. Whoever produced this has mixed the vocals into the instrumentation very amateurishly, and the guitars sound more chunky than crunchy, drenching everything in an unappealing layer of distorted fuzz.

All of the good production in the world can't help songs of this quality though, which is disappointing. While the formula would be good if used for one or two songs on a full-length album, it gets old very quickly over the seventeen minutes of this CD. By the seventh "thrash played quickly" track rolled around, I was sick and tired of what this band had to offer, gimmicks or no gimmicks.

I'd like to see this band succeed, because the world needs more girl bands who can apply female style to music without making it the sole factor in their style. The Keep Aways have the right idea here, but unfortunately their execution of that idea is just terrible. Maybe they'll come up with some better production and more than one song next time.