Three rather quick tracks of caustic metalcore with a couple of succinct instrumental interludes thrown in. It's fairly typical in a way, but I'll confess that I do think their songwriting is better than average for this stuff. They keep things pretty streamlined with lots of chunky rhythms and tactful uses of dissonance, and the shouted vocals are definitely a good match for the music. Rather than heading down the overly chaotic road they keep the stuttered time signatures and changes in check, so they're not all over the place, but they do cover some ground. "Smoke + Mirrors" is one of the shorter and more energetic tracks as far as tempo is concerned, and despite it being a bit more commonplace stylistically it's actually my favorite track herein (I guess the formula's effective). "In Lights" opens with some trippy clean guitars before bringing in distortion for a slower and darker set of riffs that definitely hits home with me. Some of the song's more repetitive moments don't do much for me, but the subtle melodies and darker edge are certainly keepers. "Let's Dance" gets a little quirkier and more twisted with its riffing, almost like a heavier take on The Jesus Lizard in certain spots, with the vocals of course more consistently aggressive and some of the openly discordant chords keeping things in line with the other material. Both of the instrumental tracks (which are titled with little images rather than words) are a little more on the loose and experimental side, with the second one getting much more laidback and lush. Not bad, though not entirely necessary either. I'm also a fan of the recording quality though, I'll point that out as well. It could stand to be slightly clearer and barely cleaner (it can get muddy), but I like that you can hear the bass all the time, the drums are really thick, and the guitar tone is fuckin' perfect for this style. They're damn close to the mark in that department. I think this is a professionally duplicated CD-R or something, because the disc has some nice (though somehow different looking) printing on the face, and the packaging almost looks like a really high quality color xerox, but it gets the job done. The layout's a little plain, but I think the band logo and some of the lettering is a weird match for everything else, which tends to look subdued and consistent (the logo and some of that handwritten text are also a little misrepresentative of the style and tone of the music here). The lyrics are brief and seem personal, though open enough to where they're not painting anything too specific. Not bad. Better than I expected actually. I'm not blown away, but there's a lot of potential and quality here so I'm giving them credit where due. At times they hit on some Deadguy-esque moments, and that ain't too shabby, so I'll be curious to see where they take it from here.
[Luchador]
Running time - 12:46, Tracks: 5
[Notable tracks: Smoke + Mirrors]
Achilles - http://www.achillesband.com
