The CafFiends "Fission, Fusion, and Things Made of Concrete" CD
[Indianola]
Judging from the looks of this thing it had crappy indie rock written all over it. So I was pleasantly surprised to hear tightly performed and competently structured metalcore with that whole chaotic/discordant thing happening when I threw this in. Is it original? Not a chance. It's not completely derivative, though. It would be an unfair lie to toss this off as 100% commonplace as far as this style is concerned. Yes, there are scathing vocal screams and lots of pull-off riffs, quirky changes, fast runs and blasting beats, and sure they throw undercurrents of melody in there. But that's not all by any means. I can hear bits of everything from Botch and Guilt to Snapcase (especially in portions of more rhythmic tracks like "Beauty Queen", but this is a lot less annoying than Snapcase) and Boy Sets Fire on this CD. And what about songs like "Twenty-Three" that use more angular indie/post-hardcore textures and unusual layering along with lightly distorted singing vocals - it's a completely different feel from the rest of the album, and not in a bad way. Then there's "Beauty Queen Reprise", a total lounge jazz instrumental, which is very nice, though it would be a lot cooler if they integrated that playing style with their other influences rather than just messing around with a little interlude or something (a similar situation to "Catalyst for Change", except there the weird filters over the drums sound like crap). The biggest problem is that a handful of the songs drag on for more than four minutes and the album is entirely too long at a whopping 52 minutes total. I'd say there are at least five or six songs that could be shaved off to have made for a more succinct and powerful record. And coincidentally most of the boring songs that run on for too long come at the latter chunk of the disc as well. They just hit a stretch that's not as fluid or melodic, which is fine, but the writing just isn't as strong as some of the earlier tracks. The recording is actually pretty god damn slick here. Everything is fairly clear and well textured, the drums are natural, the bass is there, the vocals don't dominate, etc. At times some of the guitar parts sound almost muddy, but there's a really high level of clarity to the high-end tones, so everything ends up sounding really fucking good. It gets the green light from me. The layout's not bad, but it is typical, going with that whole "old record sleeve" sort of look, with clean graphics and type, minimal colors, some tinted black and white photos, etc. Lyrically it's nothing new either, what with a few sarcastic song titles and typically personal lyrics dealing with relationships and whatnot, it's nothing that grabs me. This is a good record, though. I'm definitely still a little shocked that they sound nothing like what you'd expect, but it's cool. I'll be interested to hear what they do next. (7/10)
Running time - 51:44, Tracks: 16
[Notable tracks: Capistrano, Giving Up, Twenty-Three, Beauty Queen, Beauty Queen Reprise]
Indianola Records - http://www.indianolarecords.com

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