Bodies in the Gears of the Apparatus "s/t" 3" CD
[self-released]
I saw these guys live and they were utterly horrible. In fact, I would rank them as one of the worst and most obnoxious bands I have ever had the great displeasure of sitting through in a live setting. It was torture. They were sloppy, noisy, their hokey "stage antics" were inexcusably annoying (if not mildly amusing)... just... bad. That being said, this demo is a bit better. While flawed, it's far tighter, and you can actually make out the riffs more clearly. It's basically grindcore with a little modern metalcore thrown in, bordering on the crazy go nuts style without going quite so far as to ruin everything. There are plenty of blasting beats with dissonant runs and tremolo picking madness, as well as some chunky breakdowns and moderately technical runs. It's really not that bad aside from the fact that there's a bit of a fluidity issue and I really don't like the cackling high-pitched vocal screams. The lower vocals are a lot more forceful and less cheesy, so I would highly recommend focusing on that style in the future. I like the tempo changes and everything, but things can get blurry as they get faster. The second track is untitled and consists of nothing but a sample. A two-and-a-half minute sample. Talk about killing the fucking flow. Christ, I won't lie, I wanted to stop the demo at that point. Huge mistake. Huge mistake. Never, never put a fucking sample on a 10-minute demo when the sample is almost as long as your fucking songs. What's the point? As for the sound, it's a weird recording, it sounds compressed, almost as if it was burned from a set of mp3's or something. The guitars are sort of heavy, but the mix needs a lot more low-end. The bass is distorted and falls to the distance behind the guitars, and the drums are pretty rigid/thin. The other setback here is the package. The disc comes in a plastic sleeve, and the insert looks sort of cool but the text is hard to read and there's no information provided at all. No lyrics, no lineup, nothing. Just some contact information. The song titles are typically "witty" (not my thing) and give no indication as to what the lyrical content might involve, so I think lyrics should've been thrown in for good measure. I don't know, there's promise here, but they're not tapping into it completely at this point. Live they had a guy with a laptop "making noise" (or at least standing there acting like an idiot pretending to do something on the computer), and I'm not picking up on any such textures here. He was completely unnecessary anyway and the last thing this music needs is more noise, so... I'd toss that and the high screams to the curb and focus on writing slightly more consistent songs that focus on the sheer force the band drops when they slow down even a little bit (see "Seventeen Reasons to Die Wearing Black"). Maybe next time. (4/10)
Running time - 9:40, Tracks: 4
[Notable tracks: Seventeen Reasons to Die Wearing Black]
Bodies in the Gears of the Apparatus - http://www.bodiesinthegears.com

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