My Bitter End "A Thin Line Between Heaven and Here" CD
[Inner Strength]
I sort of expected this to be pretty typical modern metalcore, and that's what it is. I was hoping it would be slightly better than this, but it's basically run of the mill material. Tremolo picking Swedish styled riffs, dual guitar harmonies, chunky breakdowns, discordant chords and jagged tempo shifts, etc. The vocals are stronger than most of this stuff simply because the screaming is deeper and not so stagnant, throwing in some lower growls and spoken passages, but musically there's nothing unexpected or particularly memorable about this disc at all. The slower and more openly melodic "666 x 0 =" is one stark glimmer of hope for this band, as that track is immediately more powerful with its contrast of thick melodic chords and burly chugga chugga mosh rhythms. Similarly the clean guitars, melodic solos, and slick drum fills that introduce the title track are quite promising, granted the rest of the song is awful... The recording's alright. The drumming is pretty cool so I like that the drums are aptly clear and not too rigid, and the vocals sound pretty good, but I'd rework the rest. The bass tends to get lost, and the guitar tone isn't thick enough. It sort of feels like it's distorted at 75% of what it should be, so it's clear and all that (clear enough to hear some falters in the playing on occasion), but there's no real force there. A better guitar tone and a cohesively balanced mix could actually make a slight difference in the way this material comes off, I think. The layout actually looks really awesome. It's nice and consistent with some killer photos of a rotting bird carcass along a beach, but the colors and the clarity of the photos really make things stand out. As far as the lyrical content, it's all pretty typical, with partially sarcastic song titles and material dealing with the usual relationship problems and extreme forms of revenge and such. This just isn't for me. I've said it a million times before and I'll probably say it a million more: This whole style is far too generic at this point for so many bands of this nature to keep getting signed without pushing any boundaries or even excelling at the mediocre. (5/10)
Running time - 40:37, Tracks: 11
[Notable tracks: 666 x 0 =]
Inner Strength Records - http://www.bandhot.com/innerstrength/

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