Listening to Canberra’s Switch 3 makes me feel like I’m trapped in a dark, musty club somewhere in the mid nineties, listening to a battle of the bands competition. All the doors are locked, the place smells of cigarettes and puke, the beer is far too expensive, and my ears are hurting. I am holding a warm beer in one hand, while subtly trying to cover one of my bleeding ears with the other. My head is bobbing up and down uncontrollably as I try to look as though I’m enjoying myself while secretly scanning the room for an exit sign. Plastered upon my face is a grotesque smile, but behind my serene blue eyes, I am in pain.

In actual fact, these guys are probably quite good live, in a drunken ‘caught up in the moment’ kind of way. After a few beers I’d probably start getting sentimental for the old punk and metal I used to listen to when I was sixteen and start moshing uncontrollably, shortly before having my teeth knocked out for dry humping somebody’s girlfriend. But in the cold light of day, sitting at my computer desk and arching my eyebrows trying to look like a serious music critic, this EP sounds incredibly dated and is really quite unpleasant to listen to.

Musically, these guys are quite talented, the execution of their heavy metal riffs and fast-paced punk tunes is pretty flawless. The singing is good enough, not spectacular, but good enough. But wait - there’s something here that smacks of an amateur band, and I can’t quite put my finger on it. I’m confident that I could walk into any decent battle of the bands competition and hear music of this calibre - in fact, I’ve heard better.

There is a strong punk influence on this album, probably owing slightly more to modern punk bands like Bodyjar than their heavy metal influences. Coupled with the oh-so-sinister feigned menace which comes standard with metal bands, the fast-paced punk rock which dominates the album makes for a pretty dark affair, complete with hard-luck lyrics which question authority. Yawn.

Often it seems the lyrics fit quite awkwardly within these songs, sounding out of place with the rhythm and flow of the music, contributing to an overall amateur feeling, despite the EP being professionally produced by ARIA winning engineer Anton Hagop.

Despite successfully creating a hybrid of metal and punk, Switch 3 manages to sound exactly like hundreds of other bands. There is nothing original, inventive, musically challenging, or interesting about this EP – in fact, I feel like I’ve heard it all before, busting out of a session room or a garage somewhere. Far from treading new ground, these guys are re-hashing musical territory which has already been explored thoroughly, and adding nothing original to make it their own. And it bores me to tears.

Switch 3 are probably going to make quite a lucrative living out of playing pubs and clubs and blasting the crap out of toothless old drunks as they play the pokies. Having a great live energy is one thing, but making good records is another story, and it will take a lot more thought, creativity, and experience before this outfit can make a record which doesn’t sound like a dime-a-dozen garage band.