I was not at all surprised upon listening to this CD to be greeted by completely derivative modern metalcore. The band name screams it, the artwork screams it, the song titles scream it... and that's what it is. Moshy chord progressions, tons of melodic Swedish death metal riffs that I've heard no less than 100 times before, vocals that range from midrange growls to high screams... you know the formula. I'll give this band credit though - unoriginal they may be, but at least they can write a song and the performance is pretty tight. They're better than average. They pull off the riffing pretty nicely, there's some fluidity to the changes and such, the guitars don't always double one another or play standard harmonies... it's not all bad, it's just so unoriginal at this point. The recording's 50/50. The drums are too rigid, there's no bass in the mix, and the guitars are a bit rough around the edges. I do think the vocals sound really good, though. And there's a lot of clarity without any gaps in the mix (despite the absence of bass tones). I'd smooth out the guitar distortion and give the bass guitar more definition. That might cover up the rigidity of the drums a bit more and solve everything. The layout's not bad. The booklet folds out vertically and the cover art extends in both directions, and the inner sleeve has the lyrics presented in a vertical format along with some black and white images of withered flowers and such. The CD face also has some excellent white on white printing going on that's barely noticeable unless the light hits it just right. It looks nice, really... even though some of the text is illegible. I'm not into the lyrics because they seem to me like the typical "girl 'wrongs' boy and boy writes really violent, bitter song about it" stuff: "...one day she'll be something more than my whore how can I not kill her set her free now you said I should but would you do it yourself you said you won't you'll make me when you rest these wounds you'll smile inside when you rest these wounds smile a new words from your mouth haunt me no more was it the way you present her was is it the way I shall see her shall we go on." I don't want to be all that hard on these guys because they're definitely stronger than a good chunk of the bands out there playing this style, but it's so run of the mill and lacks variety from song to song (except for the acoustic guitars at the beginning of "The Smirk Behind Your Smile"), so it tends to all sound the same. If you're really into this stuff, you'd like this. But I'm really burnt out on this genre because so few bands are doing anything different.
[Inner Strength]
Running time - 22:05, Tracks: 6
[Notable tracks: The Smirk Behind Your Smile]
Inner Strength Records - http://www.innerstrengthrecords.com
