Pareto - Your Heart is Ready for Home EP Review

I should know better than to prejudge bands based on brief snippets of songs by now, but I must admit I'm occasionally guilty of it. Pareto are a band that have generally fallen in to the camp of bands that I've never particularly wanted to listen to. Not through any real fault of their own, more that most of the Scottish bands at the rockier end of the scale don't really excite me all that much, so it's an area I don't spend much time investigating or listening to. It's probably fair to say that I'm a bit older than the crowd these kind of bands appeal to as well, which is probably a factor.
As much as I like getting submissions for reviews, I wasn't too fussed then when Pareto sent of their upcoming EP Your Heart is Ready for Home then, especially since the "to be reviewed" pile is already stacked pretty high.

All of which is a very long way of saying I'm sorry Pareto, I misjudged you.
There's the crunching guitars, crashing cymbals and meaty chords I expected, along with shouty singalong choruses, start/stop dynamics and call and return vocals that go with them, particularly on the first two tracks, but carried out with enough technique and charisma that rather than hurrying to find the skip button I'm quite happy to go with it. The first two songs might use all the clichés I thought they would, but they manage to put them together better than most.
The second half EP stands out more for me as Pareto shift a gear for a more textured, melodic sound. While the first half was good, the second half is better, and a good bit more diverse.

Your Heart is Ready for Home might have sat on the submissions pile for a wee while, but I'm really glad it found it's way out of there and into my head eventually.
The songs on the EP maybe aren't mindblowing or revolutionary, but they are distinctive enough that they don't come across as yet another copycat band. More importantly the EP is solid, thoroughly enjoyable, and had my old head bobbing along atop my creaky neck. I might have a couple of quibbles with the whole package, but they are very minor ones.

Pareto - MySpace

Pareto launch their Your Heart is Ready for Home EP with a gig at The Courtyard in Glasgow on the 16th of April in association with Detour Scotland where copies of the debut EP will be available for purchase.
The digital release will be shortly after, on the 19th of April via all major download sites.