Switch up - 'Echoes of a Shattered Memory' EP Review

‘Echoes of a Shattered Memory’, the debut EP from Canberra based band Switch Up, welcomes listeners warmly with an experience that feels genuine, consistent, and complete. A feat beyond their years considering the band's March 2024 formation. The EP tells you a story of despair, loss, and a dying hope. 

Switch Up’s opening track ‘The Bygone Feelings of the Heavy Heart’ begins with a lovely resonant guitar, soft and lilting, initiating a vibe-y jam that progresses smoothly into the heavier sounds the bulk of Switch Up’s EP ‘Echoes of a Shattered Memory’ provides.

Guitarist Chloe Kelleher is a standout in this track, holding down the melody and setting an eerie and dark mood. It’s an excellent introduction to an EP that is moody, dark, and dramatic. 

Complimenting ‘The Bygone Feelings of the Heavy Heart’ the track transitions into their second track, and first traditional song, ‘Love Is Dead, We Killed It’. 

Vocalist Renee Van Linh’s growl punches through you, jump-starting the track, and bringing a fresh energy. Laughlin McCooey’s rumbling bass and the stinging riffs of Chloe Kelleher add to the intense and aggressive mood of the song. Meanwhile, Drummer Kaemon Featherstone holds the band steady with a solid and confident beat. 

Opening with what appears to be a scathing quote from Adam McKay’s 2016 film The Big Short, ‘HYPOCRITE’ provides a disjointed and bitter criticism of our planet. The opening quote implies the song describes the failings of capitalism and the futile struggles against such a system.

‘HYPOCRITE’ shines lyrically both politically charged and appropriately enraging, which is matched by the chugging guitar, disorientating lead guitar, and pounding drums. The song depicts the hypocrisy of the world, offering both solution and dissolution, war and peace, in a single moment. 

Similarly bleak in lyrical content is ‘Dying to Believe’, the fourth track on the EP, depicting a deep sense of hopelessness and listlessness.

Similar to ‘HYPOCRITE’, we’re confronted with two opposing realities in the lyrics. It’s clear Switch Up are unafraid to express their raw, honest selves in the lyrical content of their music. 

Chloe Kelleher, once again, adds a sonically interesting, diverse, and enjoyable mood to the song. The guitar switches from traditional heavy-metal chugging to a softer, melodic arrangement that provides a beautiful colour to an otherwise crushingly dense song. 

Switch Up provides a refreshing interlude in the form of ‘The Lonely Thorn’.

As the penultimate track, ‘The Lonely Thorne’ indicates the band's skilled ability to reset the mood. Listeners are gently removed from the intensity of ‘HYPOCRITE’ and ‘Dying to Believe’.

We’re offered a much needed moment to breathe, to feel, and to think. The track features a voicemail over the beautiful guitar work of Chloe Kelleher, gentle and achingly sad, the pair compliment each other wonderfully. 

‘The Lonely Thorn’ acts as an excellent introduction to the longest song of the EP, ‘Give Up//Give In’. The final song of the EP and an excellent reflection of the EP as a whole. 

The concept of hope and despair, loss and love, winning and losing, is again tackled with ‘Give Up//Give In’. Lyrically, it focuses on despair and pain, yet introduces the ability to escape, the idea of hope and light amongst the darkness.

Musically, the song contains all the trademarks we’ve come to appreciate in Switch Up with a powerful chugging rhythm guitar, stinging lead guitar riffs, and a grounding, consistent rhythm section. 

‘Give Up//Give In’ is the highlight of ‘Echoes of Shattered Memory’, reaching a crescendo that the EP has been building towards since the very first note, and concluding the story Switch Up have established for us to revel in. 

Overall, ‘Echoes of a Shattered Memory’ is a thrilling debut. Captivating both musically and lyrically, each moment feels laden with meaning and raw, honest, feeling. An excellently constructed EP with clear thought placed behind not only each song, but the EP as a whole. 

There’s room to grow for Switch Up but upon listening, there’s more than promise, there’s a guarantee that Switch Up can and will grow into something beautiful. 

for more switch up click here for their link tree.