These guys may reside in Washington state, but they sound a hell of a lot like they're from Europe with their brand of punishing and discordant metalcore. It's frantic and at times caustic, but rather than chaotic or overly technical they keep things focused around a very solid rhythmic core, so the end result reminds me a lot of certain niches of the scenes in France or Switzerland (think Ananda, Nostromo, etc.), blended with the 90's era American sounds of bands like Bloodlet and Deadguy (the strained vocal screams are especially comparable to the former). And, I have to say, this is extremely good for this style. The songwriting is controlled and to the point, averaging two to three minutes per track, and even though there are a lot of tempo changes and shifts between different riffs the material is very fluid - balancing its jarring elements with tangible chord progressions and a good sense of overall force. As a whole the songs are pretty consistent with one another in their blend of playing styles, but the force and concentration of the arrangements is also a consistent thread, so the outcome is a definite winner overall. "Our Merciful Father" and "A Martyr's Cry" follow one another straight off with shitloads of pounding rhythms and thick dissonance that creates a pretty ominous atmosphere - all while highlighting the fact that the performances on this disc are tight as fuck, which makes a huge difference in overall execution. "Revolutions" is one of the most straightforward tracks in its use of almost fast picking patterns and chunky chords with a little discordance and very few quick changeups in structure; while "No One is Listening" has one of the strongest breakdowns on the entire record - using lots of atypical chord phrasings and time signatures to spice things up rather than falling back on the typical chugga mosh stuff. "This Transparency" gets a little more commonplace in its alternating chunkiness and dissonance, but even those types of elements work fine within this material because everything's executed at a far more ferocious level than most of these bands. The recording is pretty nice as well. The vocals sound perfect, the drums are nice and crisp with enough resonance to make up for their rigidity, and the bass adds a lot of density despite the fact that it's not defined enough to play a prominent role. The guitars are ultra heavy and have a really nice midrange bite for the acerbic textures, but I think the chunky rhythms suffer just a bit from that veil of midrange that hovers overhead. It's no big deal, but if that one element was glossed over a touch more this thing would sound phenomenal. The layout looks pretty damn good, with a full color cover and shades of brown and black elsewhere depicting high contrast images of some of the figures from the cover. Lyrically the band definitely takes a stark christian direction, and some of the content is definitely pretty alienating, but more often than not they're able to handle it well: "These feeble attempts, they start to wear you down. It's time to smash these walls and these chains that bind us all. The answer lies before. You say you want a revolution. It's already begun..." Seriously, this is one of the best bands of this style that I've heard as of late. I thought about giving this an 8/10 but it needs just a little extra push to jump to that next level. Watch out for this band, though. Any fan of this style would be very much recommended to give this one a shot... I look forward to hearing their future efforts.
[Strike First]
Running time - 30:25, Tracks: 11
[Notable tracks: Our Merciful Father, A Martyr's Cry, Falling Away, No One is Listening]
Strike First Records - http://www.strikefirstrecords.com
