Yep, melodic Swedish styled metalcore from Belgium. Expect the norm: Tons of blasting drums, sneering vocal screams, shitloads of tremolo picking, a few slower breaks or leads, dual guitar harmonies, and so on. They're competent, but nothing about this is all that memorable. I find the riffs to be mediocre, and the songwriting is boring to me. It's bad enough that millions of bands are playing this exact same style right now, but there's just nothing going on with this CD that sets it apart. Sure, every now and then a weird little rocked out riff will show itself, and I like the acoustic riffs and slower distorted rhythms in "Love Anthem for a Dead Friend" (granted the spoken vocals are no good), but a few little moments can't save the record. The black metal speeds of "Road to Salvation" are almost refreshing in some ways, just because the song is shorter and more direct than the others, but something's still missing. The production is on the right track but needs work. The mix works out okay, but the guitar tone needs more thickness and crunch, the drums could be a tad more natural, and they need to balance out the overall sound to be more rounded. It's not muddy right now, but there are some muddy tones in there, and the few brighter aspects hover above more than necessary because the midrange isn't that full. Visually this one could be stronger. I like the way the booklet folds out into a four-panel square, but the cover isn't that hot, the band photo is cheesy (I'm stunned that one of the dudes is sporting a Manowar shirt), etc. I think the text is clean and the color scheme works well, I've seen far worse, but most of Genet's other releases look a lot stronger than this. The lyrics are somewhat overdramatic for me as well, especially represented by song titles like "Through the Eyes of Rebellion" and "Melancholy Returns" - dealing with personal issues, attacks on religion, and one track lashing out against racism. Ehhh, I just can't get into this. Were they able to get into more stuff along the lines of "Love Anthem for a Dead Friend" (musically), they'd be onto something, but the totally derivative Swedish influences really need to take a back seat.
[Genet]
Running time - 36:12, Tracks: 9
[Notable tracks: Love Anthem for a Dead Friend, Order of the Dragon]
Genet Records - http://www.genetrecords.com
