Fear Before the March of Flames "Odd How People Shake" CD
[Equal Vision]
These bands need to take the god damn "scr" and "a" out of "screamo" and just let the "emo" rest as it may, because I am sick of listening to/watching a bunch of hipster fucking losers with bad haircuts and tight clothes squirm around like Mick Jagger in withdrawal screaming and squawking like fucking chickens and ruining otherwise competent songs. These guys play what basically amounts to heavy emo/indie rock with a mix of smooth clean passages, slightly chaotic/dissonant leanings, chunkier chord progressions, and a good sense of melody. And then there are the vocals... screaming, singing... it's all here. But what kills me is that the motherfucker is actually a pretty good singer, but his fucking manic shrieking sounds ridiculous and annoying and ruins their music, so why isn't he just fucking singing instead? I'm not saying the songwriting is perfect. Sometimes it gets stale or too abrasive/jumbled for its own good. However, the recording is effective, and the musicianship is tighter and more on point than a lot of bands playing this style, which makes me want to wrap that mic cord around the vocalist's throat and squeeze even more. Shit, even screaming would be fine if the screams weren't so faux frantic and bothersome. But why... why not just fucking sing, dude!? I hate the noodly chaotic and semi chugga junk like "Girl's Got a Face Like Murder", but fucking "Given to Dreams" is a great song that would only be made more excellent without the aggressive vocals. As mentioned the sound is cool. The drums sound fucking awesome, the bass sounds good and the bassist is a strong player that works with the guitars rather than copying the guitars, the guitars sound great when they're heavy and only mildly obnoxious during some of the more grating riffs, and the vocals are (thankfully) mixed in a good position that's not hovering out in front. I don't care for the layout all that much for a few reasons. It doesn't look terrible, but the color scheme is sort of all over the place, and most of the text is in a small, scripted sort of font that gives me an enormous headache if I try to read any of it. The concept of the layout is sort of cool, it just looks a little dull in some respects. There's a CD-Rom video with live footage set to studio audio, but it's pretty terrible. The footage looks alright, but not great, and god damnit are the generic fucking screamo antics too much for me to take. They've got it all down to the tight shirts, bushy hair in their eyes, squirming and twitching, jumping off of the drums... fucking gross. It's too bad that the majority of the songs on this CD favor the band's more obnoxious side, because a record full of tracks as powerful as "Given to Dreams" or "Motelroomgrandpiano" would be enjoyable as is... but the musicians in this band should seriously consider beating their singer to the ground with no remorse should he refuse to can the squealing and just start singin' it up. (5/10)
Running time - 41:03, Tracks: 10
[Notable tracks: Given to Dreams, Motelroomgrandpiano]
Equal Vision Records - http://www.equalvision.com

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