Here's some burly metalcore from New Jersey that, while not that creative, does have some promise. There are lots of churning moderately paced rhythms with a tasteful amount of groove and melody, and the vocals are generally growled, with some half-singing at times, and I tend to like some of that as well. The only thing I'm not into are the tremolo picking riffs and generic dual guitar harmonies - they're just too stale and typical (see "Call to Opposition"). The chugging chord progressions are pretty good, though. Simple, but effective. The main thing I'd like to hear would be more tempo changes, because the songs gravitate towards moderate to slow tempos that aren't always that powerful, so even though some of the riffs are fucking great, the writing is boring. The recording is sort of uneven, I can handle it, but they need a better sound to really show what they've got. The vocals are pretty much louder than the instruments, but the drums sound pretty good (maybe a little too thick). Though I can't make out much of the bass, and I'd say the guitars definitely need some work. The tone is heavy, but too rugged... I think they just need a smoother set of tones that still retains a certain amount of texture, and a mix that would keep everything dense and even with some clarity on top that would keep the muddiness out of the picture. The layout's so-so. I've seen worse, but I still think it's fairly bland. The band photos aren't that hot, the imagery doesn't seem to fit the music per se (at least not the cover image), and overall the appearance just isn't very connected to what kind of music the band plays. Lyrically the songs deal with personal issues, but nothing really hits me... it's all fairly straightforward and I'm not interested in their approach. I'm not really into this, but the band could do better, I'm sure of it. If they got rid of the generic melodic Swedish aspects (which are already pretty scarce) and focused on crushing, straight up metalcore with a death metal overtone, they could be pretty damn good. Who knows where they'll go with it?
[self-released]
Running time - 20:10, Tracks: 6
[Notable tracks: Bleed Through the Lies]
Deadeverything - http://www.deadeverything.com
