Me+Goliath were a band from Kent. They released a split 7" with Grave, Shovel...Let's Go! and this self-titled 10".
I first saw them in a small pub in London, opening for my friends' band, Cutting Class. There appeared to be about 5 people who were into them. That seemed to be the case pretty much every time I saw Me+Goliath, but it never seemed to be something that fazed them. They played a style of chaotic, screamy emo popularised in the USA and Europe by bands like Portraits of Past and La Quiete.
That "skramz revival" scene just hasn't been very popular in the UK over the past few years. I have no doubt that is at least in-part due to Internet message boards being overly cliquey about the genre and their desperation to distinguish it from the more mainstream view of what screamo is.
After seeing them that first time, I endeavored to put them as much as I could. The best time a show they played whilst on tour with Dolcim [a band featuring ex-Cease Upon The Capitol chaps]. Despite the fact that it was a weekday, loads of people travelled to the show, which The Fall of Efrafa and The Plague Sermon also played. Everyone was really into all the bands and there was a really cool sense of community; it was one of my favourite shows that I've been involved in.
As I had seen them so many times, I knew a couple of these songs by the time I picked up the record and it completely lived up to my expectations. The structure of the record is so well thought-out; starting off slow before building and winding into fury and chaos on each side of the disc is just fantastic. The last song on the A-side, Untitled, is my favourite. It encompasses everything that I find so exhilarating about screamo, the winding, building melodies and furious and unassuming endings.
This record was released around the same time as the Battle Of Wolf 359 LP [whom Chris from M+G also plays guitar] and the final Fall of Efrafa record [although not a screamo record by any means., 2009 was a pretty good year for this sort of music in the UK.
I think this record is still in print from Internationale records. Oli who runs the label is a great guy and happens to be one of the only other people in the UK who likes music as unpopular as screamo is to release records. You should check out his site.
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