The Banner are one of those bands who, if you reach in to the deepest recesses of your memory, showed real signs of promise in the early 2000’s. It is almost crazy to think that the band are already on their fifth studio album with Greying (Good Fight) because they have always been so under the radar, but you’ll be two tracks into this record and immediately you’ll feel that THIS is what they are capable of. Now, before all you diehard fans of the band start throwing us evil glares and shaking your finger in disregard, we know this has been a long six year wait, but with these being the results after such a length of time, The Banner could well see themselves becoming a blip on the radar after all.
Previous records from this band have all been relatively varied. The 2006 release Frailty (Ferret) is the album which many point to as their best due to its aggression and calculated fury, but with Greying the band have been able to blend this with a heightened emphasis on a far darker and brooding tone. The first four tracks on here contain elements which wouldn’t be misplaced on a Doom record, before it suddenly explodes into more of a Hardcore sound on ‘Unbaptized’. The darker edge throughout the record, really allows it to set itself apart from other Hardcore Punk bands – in fact to a degree where you should probably take the ‘Hardcore Punk’ label with a pinch of salt on this record.
Overall then, Greying is almost certainly The Banner’s finest album to date, with a maturity in the sound unrivalled compared to their other records. This is the sound of a band who have been able to truly collate together all of their strengths from previous releases and mashed them together into one big snarling beast of a record. One thing is for sure, Greying will surely get more people talking about The Banner a lot more, a fact which many of its closest fans feel should have happened many years ago.
8.0/10
TOM DONNO
