Not bad. Melodic hardcore from Germany that I would be very much a fan of if the sound quality improved a bit. It sounds okay, but the drums are thin and unassuming, and the guitar tone and the vocals both have a little bit of a weird sheen to them that obscures the crispness of the material. With a crunchier guitar sound, a smoother rhythm section, and an overall sense of fluid clarity/brightness these songs would really come off as much more energetic and effective. The writing's good, though. The yelling vocals (at times leaning towards singing) take some getting used to, but the music is a great mix of old school hardcore chord progressions with more modern sounding melodic riffing and subtle metallic flare. They often layer octave chords or dissonant guitar lines in with the rhythms, and some of the catchier stuff almost hits on a heavy emo or pop-punk kind of thing, even though the overall vibe is very much one of a hardcore band. For the most part the tempos are moderately fast but have a really energetic drive, and I'm all over that aspect for sure. The pull-off riffing at the start of "Schinabeck and Walinowski" is pretty awful, and some of the more openly metallic tinges in "Robotnics" aren't working at all, but those are the only true sore spots I'm feeling on the entire disc. "09/11 Runners" is straightforward in structure but uses some creative chords that add some intrigue to the piece and help make it more memorable, "Sputnik Shock" opens with a quick mix of clean and distorted guitars and makes better use of layered guitar interaction and interesting picking patterns in the rhythm playing (as does opener "The Tyrants Are Still Not Dethroned", which is the catchiest song of the bunch in my opinion), and "The Dawning of the Days When Darkness Starts to Prevail" hits on some of the most pop-punk sounding elements of the material rather effectively as well - not to mention containing some of the most blatant dynamic shifts in its longer running time, even closing with piano. They cover "I Hate the Kids" by State of Alert as well, which stands out just a touch from their originals since it's shorter and not all that melodic. The layout is largely done in high contrast imagery with black and white and blue printing accented by metallic silver ink. Full color band shots are in with the lyrics, but the lyrics are sort of hard to read over the backgrounds, which can be a pain. The content is largely socio-political, and I don't mind their approach at all: "We swore if we died we would die on the battlefields. But it has turned out that our death happened in bars, offices, and armchairs. We got buried by ourselves." I'd like to hear more from this band in the future. This one's not quite there yet, but there's a lot of cool stuff here, and I know I could really get into 'em if they polish up the recording just a little bit more. I'll look forward to their next outing...
[Striving for Togetherness]
Running time - 30:51, Tracks: 10
[Notable tracks: The Tyrants Are Still Not Dethroned, 09/11 Runners, Sputnik Shock]
Striving for Togetherness Records - http://www.strivingfortogetherness.com
