Provoked "Infant in the Womb of Warfare" CD
[Profane Existence]
This recently issued CD collect's Provoked's debut 2003 LP alongside tracks from their split 7" with Path of Destruction, totaling a little over a half-hour of heavy yet occasionally melodic crust punk with scathing female vocals. Musically this isn't as metallic as a lot of crust punk tends to be, and the tempos tend to keep things fairly fast and furious, with lots of speedy picking patterns as well as driving power chords. I'm definitely digging the vocals too, as they tend to stick with fierce yelling/screaming that really does possess a lot of genuine anger, with a couple of spoken passages popping up now and then. "SKO" opens with some crossover metal sounding riffs and some killer basslines, and that's definitely something the band nails home quite effectively. "Blind Life" starts off with a token clean intro and a dark, midpaced metal crunch that I'm all over, and this is definitely one of the most impressive tunes herein - some of the vocals almost even lean towards singing. Awesome. Despite starting out with a little more melody, "Black Hole" shifts into some tremolo picking and another generally speedy crust framework, whereas "Flying Monkey" actually lets the melody take a little more hold and provide a more consistent contrast to the fast blasts of hardcore/punk. "Stifle It" is almost strangely inconsistent in its combination of catchy punk rock energy and crossover thrash influences, so even though I like the song it sort of doesn't fit in with its surroundings on some level; and the same could be said for the dissonantly melodic intro to "Faces of Shame", which again suddenly drops right back to straight up hardcore/punk with no frills. The LP's recording is fine by me. I wouldn't be complaining if the guitar tone was a little heavier, but the light ruggedness they've got going on works out well, the basslines are prominent in the mix, and the vocals sound awesome. In some ways the recording sounds kind of dated (and I'm not talking about 2003 dated, I'm talking about 10+ years ago dated), but that's actually a pretty cool touch. The tracks from the split 7" sound pretty crappy though: Way quieter, way muddier, and pretty unbalanced as far as the mix is concerned. It doesn't hold back the songwriting in terms of the brooding intro and super pissed vocal tradeoffs in "Passion to Live", but... the sound quality is definitely sub-par for that particular session. The booklet contains all of the lyrics and a different piece of artwork for almost every song, and even though I don't care for most of the illustrations used throughout (some of which are just too silly for me, but this does not refer to the cover), the typically collaged black and white look works out in most cases. The lyrics tend to deal with a mix of socio-political issues and a general sense of frustration and confusion, where the latter approach is actually the more powerful of two: "I live in a dream world. That someday everything will be fine. A dream world that is mine. No expectations of life, no disappointments or lies. No more tears to blind me, no more chains to bind me, of this cold dark world of fear..." This is promising material, it's just that the listening experience is somewhat disjointed from start to finish since the band explores a few different directions. That diversity is certainly nice to keep things from stagnating, but it's when they hone in on their strengths a little more specifically that I think they're really going to succeed. (6/10)
Running time - 32:47, Tracks: 14
[Notable tracks: SKO, Blind Life, Flying Monkey, Passion to Live]
Profane Existence - http://www.profaneexistence.com

This review has been displayed 1843 times.