Bora "Spit Into Kismet's Face" CD
[Kablio Muzika]
Damn, not bad. 13 tracks of varied metallic hardcore from this Lithuanian act that jumps from rhythmic surges and caustic power chords to intense melodic undercurrents and all sorts of other riffs that hit on a ton of different hardcore and metal influences. There's no melodic Swedish shit either, so I want to make that clear right from the start. These guys are messing more with an unusual mix of post-hardcore textures and chaotic trimmings with melodic metal accents while still staying fairly rooted in hardcore/punk - all with scorching vocal screams or yells that work well with the quickly shifting musical styles. The writing can be slightly disjointed as a result, but it's fairly well handled, and they never take the chaotic thing too far at all, as most of the tracks use those influences as accents as opposed to making that their dominant style. Hell, "Praying for Silence" even starts out with acoustic guitars before taking one of the more melodic stances with its chord progressions and picking patterns, swaying from a modern take on traditional hardcore to some of the only instances of tactful tremolo picking on the entire disc. "Spontaneity as the Biggest Shortfall" brings in a little more tremolo picking along with an oddly melodic sense of groove, and I can't quite make up my mind on that, but I do enjoy certain elements of it; but the stuttered shifts from straight power chords with backing octave chords and energetic bursts of speed in "Diskvalifikuok Save" do a better job of catching my ear and definitely make for one of the best tracks herein. The aptly titled "Wake Up!" is among the only songs that blatantly references old school hardcore, with "Insecure Heterosexuality" and "Ghetto" both taking a more creative and layered attack on a few similar influences - the latter using spoken vocals and prominent basslines during one more dramatic instance. A lot of times it seems to be hard for bands in certain countries to achieve certain levels of quality with the periphery elements of their records, but that is apparently not at all an issue for these guys, because the recording on this thing sounds shockingly good for a small band on a small label in Lithuania. The guitars are nice and crunchy with a well controlled distortion, the vocals sound great, you can make out just enough of the bass, and the drums sound nice and natural. There's minor room for improvement here and there, but for the most part the mix is balanced and all of the tones are damn good. I've got no complaints, and I can definitely state that this sounds better than the vast majority of the metalcore that I get from the US. And the layout? Fucking awesome. The entire package is printed on matte stock with a minimal color scheme and lots of high contrast imagery with dirty textures and layering that all looks fucking awesome. The booklet even has an extended panel on the cover that folds around to enclose the other pages. Extremely impressive. There are definitely some communication issues in the lyrics due to the language barrier, so there are a few passages that are really unclear to me, but for the most part it seems to be a mix of personal reflection and socio-political content just dealing with hardships and questioning things in order to take more control of your own life and such. Nothing new, but that's alright. And seriously, you can hear dashes of everyone from Boy Sets Fire to His Hero is Gone on this disc, so... that's a sure testament to this band's immense diversity, and they're actually making a solid go of throwing so many different approaches into the mix. There are some kinks to work out, but all in all this is a really good CD and I'm very impressed by the overall quality they've achieved here. Great job, and I'll be curious to hear more. Look into this one... (7/10)
Running time - 30:10, Tracks: 13
[Notable tracks: Praying for Silence, Diskvalifikuok Save, Purified, Ghetto]
Kablio Muzika - http://www.kablys.hardcore.lt

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