As the US punk scene continues to splinter, it’s getting harder to keep up with who’s who and what’s what.
Aiden have certainly made an impact since emerging from Seattle three years ago. They’ve headlined the Warp tour and scooped a load of awards. One of the secrets of their success has been their indie overtones: they look like Goths, flirt with horror imagery on their album sleeves, preach a message of alienation for the emo masses and have vaguely arty leanings. They certainly have a strong sense of their own worthiness, with singer Wil Francis declaring “these songs are for the suffering, the legions of boys and girls out there who feel hopeless”.
Quite how a 20 minute mini-album of fairly weedy punk rock, including a traumatic cover of Billy Idol’s ‘White Wedding’, is going to help their audience feel any less hopeless is a mystery. Rain In Hell is shockingly toothless experience, one that sounds incredibly one-dimensional next to some of their peers, not least My Chemical Romance. They may have come a long way from their teenage tantrums but Aiden are still unavoidably hopeless.