A Jealousy Issue "If the Flames Don't Kill Us... We Will" CD
[Indianola]
I've never heard of this band before, but on this EP they supply five new songs and five old songs from the "Somebody Shoot Me... I Think I'm in Love" EP. Their style is fairly typical metalcore by current standards, with lots of chugging rhythms and brutal breakdowns, scathing vocal screams, some dual guitar harmonies and dissonant textures, etc. It's nothing new, but something about their songwriting is pretty good. I like that they keep the songs fairly straightforward as far as arrangements go, they don't really drag anything out for too long, and they do flirt with some nice additions that aren't all that common with this particular style. The acoustic guitars in "Scheming, Dreaming Juggernaut" are great, "Burning Butterflies" (which is an older song) uses some singing vocals and a more direct sense of melody - which is sort of the tendency with the older EP it seems, as portions of "Dollface" have a musical similarity to early Shai Hulud on some level, and so on. I actually kind of like the more openly melodic aspects of the old songs, I'd really like to hear that combined with the clarity and heaviness of the new material. The last track, "Psychology of Optional Experience", is a straight up hardcore/punk song credited as being written by Wake Up Dead, whoever that is. They've got a decent recording happening. The new songs have a clear mix with a lot of density and great texture to the guitars and vocals. The drums are on the taut side of things, but they possess enough density to get by, and the bass plunks away in the background adding more low-end. The tracks from 2001 sound similar, but the guitar tone has a pretty vicious bite to it with some extra midrange, so it can be more grating, and it's definitely thinner. I guess the layout looks okay. I like the color scheme and the consistency of it, but I'm not a fan of the style of the imagery or type. I can live with it, but I can't believe these guys actually put a link to their LiveJournal inside their CD booklet. I've never heard of such madness. The lyrics are personal and deal with love gone wrong and all that, so there are numerous references to bleeding, suffocating, and so on. It's the usual, basically. This is a lot better than I thought it would be. It still needs some work to really be a success, and I'm a little concerned that I like the old tracks more, but we'll see... (6/10)
Running time - 29:54, Tracks: 10
[Notable tracks: Scheming, Dreaming Juggernaut, Burning Butterflies, Paperweight]
Indianola Records - http://www.indianolarecords.com

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