Another extremely misguided band from the Indianola Records roster that seems to have no clue how to write a good song, taking a promising core of energetic melodic riffing and singing vocals and randomly twisting it up with plenty of caustic dissonance and forced growls/screams that totally kill the flow. And don't forget a terrible recording to top it all off. I mean, the sound on this thing is horrendous. The drums are thin and flimsy, the bass isn't playing much of a role in the mix at all, the guitars are muddy and lack crispness thanks to a distant sheen of midrange, and the vocals are too damn loud in the mix, not to mention that everything sounds raw and generally fucked up. The whole shebang needs to be polished up and glossed over, and the mix needs to give the bass more space and pull the singing in a lot closer to the instruments, because this thing sounds way more like a self-released affair than anything that would come out on a label. After a brief intro, "Heartless" is about the worst way these dudes could ever open a record, jumping from some of the most boring and uninteresting churning metalcore crap I've ever heard to their generally more melodic emo side. This is by far the worst song on the record and is not at all representative of their style as a whole, so... bad move there. More indicative of the disc at large is "Your Way With Words is Through Silence", which is basically a pop-punk/modern emo track complete with smatterings of clean guitars and heavy melodic chords that would be a surefire hit with a more professional recording, though the random harsh screams serve absolutely no purpose whatsoever, and in fact the aggressive vocals sound way too over the top throughout the CD. These kids need to realize that contrast for the sake of contrast doesn't necessarily make sense or add a god damn bit of intrigue to your music, especially when all of your influences are typical anyway. So why not write generic songs that are actually catchy and memorable and call it a day? Trust me, the "heavy" shit ain't doin' anyone any favors on this outing. A perfect example is "You Should Have Killed Me When You Had the Chance", which jumps from sounding eerily similar to Fall Out Boy to tossing around a bunch of metalcore riffs and that annoying sneer. Further proving that they can't decide where to focus their attention, you've got the cheesy acoustic ballad "You Had Me at Hello" (I've never heard that title before, come on), complete with subtly programmed percussion. "MTV, here we come," right? Oh, except for the fact that the next song is another disjointed metalcore disaster complete with tremolo picking death metal riffs and shitty pull-off runs and dual guitar nonsense. What the fuck? The layout looks alright but isn't really doing anything for me, so... at least it's consistent and legible. The lyrics are the same story: It's typical personal stuff, and fits what you'd expect from a band that's leaning towards a radio emo/metalcore sort of sound. Make no mistake, at their best this band is totally generic. But they also write really catchy material, so... I'm okay with that. What I can't deal with is the fact that they're destroying that foundation of songwriting ability with the metalcore bullshit, and I cannot for the life of me understand why. I'm sure "the kids" are hot for this mess regardless, but... I'd strongly recommend these guys to stop screaming, stop growling, and stop playing halfassed metalcore. Face it: You're a typical modern emo band. You're good at writing catchy little vocal lines and melodic power chords with a little dash of heaviness to the picking patterns. Stick with that shit and you could do very well for yourselves. But spare my ears from the other side of your unbalanced repertoire, alright? You guys are absolutely fuckin' insane to be bothering with that junk. Cut it out!
[Indianola]
Running time - 30:29, Tracks: 10
[Notable tracks: ehhh, none of 'em are really there just yet]
Indianola Records - http://www.indianolarecords.com
