Kid Gorgeous "This Feeling Gets Old" CD
[Uprising]
Featuring members of Every Time I Die and Buried Alive/Despair, the band name "Kid Gorgeous" may be misleading, as this is in fact pummeling metalcore with a vicious mix of brutal mosh breaks and discordant abrasiveness that sort of reminds me of newer Eighteen Visions except that this doesn't suck. Why? Because it's not overly groovy, it's not overly chaotic, and it doesn't have that over the top sort of modern production that makes the guitars thump too much and cave in on themselves. Granted the bottom heavy production is slightly muddy, but for the most part it works out. Surprisingly the bass isn't all that distinct, but the drums are dense as fuck, and there is a ton of bass in the guitar distortion. You can hear the basslines enough to matter though, so I like the recording overall. I wish the guitars had the clarity of the vocals is all. The songwriting isn't rocket science, I've heard this kind of stuff before and I've heard it done better, but I think this band is doing a fine job of it. I wish there was a little more vocal variation as the constant throaty screams can get tiresome, and the sparse spoken passages or whatever don't do much to break things up, but that's no big deal. At the very least most of the songs are appropriately short and packed with changes. They're pushing it with the 6+ minutes of "My Life as a Bridge", but through the subtle use of acoustic guitars and piano and a massive dose of melody they pull it off and somehow turn it into by far the best track on the disc. They close with a cover of Nirvana's "I Hate Myself and Want to Die", and that's not half bad either, which surprised the hell out of me. The layout here is actually really fucking awesome. I love all of the busy layering of images and textures, the text arrangements are interesting, the colors work well together. Very cool. Some of the design techniques are overused, but they handle them here in a way that looks somewhat original, which is a nice touch. Lyrically things are very bitter and sarcastic, as also exemplified by song titles like "Suicide Solves Everything", and I think they've got some surprisingly amusing ideas at work. "By the way, I videotaped us fucking last night and sent a copy to your parents. I just thought I'd let you know." Fans of this whole style should get into this, I'm of course pickier than average, so I'm not blown away, but I do dig this, and I could see the band getting pretty good with time. (6/10)
Running time - 27:00 (approximately), Tracks: 10
[Notable tracks: Suicide Solves Everything, My Life as a Bridge, I Hate Myself and Want to Die]
Uprising Records - http://www.uprisingrecords.com

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