Back When "Celebration of Alceste" CD
[Imagine It]
Hmmm. Not at all what I expected, but not too shabby. What you're in for here is basically caustic metalcore with lots of stuttered rhythms and dissonance, not to mention some significant "screamo" types of influences, but the end result is pretty interesting. I wouldn't call them generic at all, in fact. They've got a good mix of midrange screaming and lower snarls, thick and heavy chord progressions, acerbic note patterns and flurries of changes, and a slew of different influences from death metal and grind to crust punk and then some. Opener "Aphorism on the Existence of Fire" is one of the more varied pieces with some of the strongest uses of subtle melody and chunky riffing, not to mention a strange little clean passage that gets quite soft and then explodes into noisier chords; and "I Could See 'Terminator 2' Really Happening" blows into some grinding death metal tremolo picking runs with a few more typically frantic metalcore trappings. "We Either Escape or Die" is an instrumental with some sludgier rhythms and moderate tempos that I really enjoy a lot, and I think this general approach is something they should infuse into their writing more often - as they do in the following "Stabhead - The Prey of a Fantasy", which also includes some brief driving rhythms similar to something along the lines of His Hero is Gone. The recording sounds good to me. The percussion is nice and natural, the bass plays its role in filling in the gaps, the guitars are a little dirty but well controlled, and the vocals are placed right in against the instruments. It's definitely a little smoother and more balanced than most of this stuff, and the only thing that rubs me the wrong way is that the clean guitars are a little flat and detuned compared to everything else. The layout's weird but I do like it. It's a mix of strange figure illustrations that look like they could be at home in a weird children's book, blended with really dark, sinister abstract textures and clean typefaces in jumbled arrangements. The lyrics, however, aren't doing much for me. Expect the usual personal stuff that's vague and blah, blah. Nothing special. Musically there's some cool shit happening, though. Their main weakness is too often falling back on the boring metalcore junk that everyone else is doing. The less they use those types of riffs the better off they'll be, as the writing is pretty energetic and diverse as it is, so... I've got my fingers crossed that their next one will really knock me on my ass. (6/10)
Running time - 12:25, Tracks: 6
[Notable tracks: Aphorism on the Existence of Fire, We Either Escape or Die, Stabhead - The Prey of a Fantasy]
Imagine It Records - http://www.imagineitrecords.com

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