Review: Farewell to Twilight “From the Aral Sea to the Western Wall” CD

Hmmm... at first I was torn on this, and kind of thought it might suck. But with a couple more spins it's growing on me and the strengths are definitely clicking with me in a major way. It's still got a lot of problem areas, and I'm not blown away, but there's a lot to work with on this one. The band's style is basically contemporary metalcore mixed with various styles of emo/"screamo" type stuff, so you'll get lots of screaming vocals with little bits of singing and spoken lines over music that ranges from somewhat biting and frantic to openly melodic as well as crunchy. Some of it definitely reminds me of Thursday and that whole style, but the more straightforward melodic chords are much more forceful, and the technical metallic riffing is killer. Sure, it all comes off as a little derivative on some level, and I think the performances need minor tightening up (the vocals need the most work, as sometimes the dude gets way too overdramatic and the actual singing needs to be more controlled), but despite its hitches there's a good sense of energy here. As usual the minor use of melodic Swedish styled tremolo picking and chaotic metalcore hammer-on/pull-off riffs is a big fault that serves little purpose and brings in too many typical trappings to the writing, but they've got a good sense of dynamics otherwise, fluidly transitioning between clean and distorted guitars, heavier rhythms and melodic smatterings, etc. What really wins me over are the more creative picking patterns and note choices used in a lot of the more subtly complex runs, though. If they can get to a point where that style of playing dominates their writing they'll really turn some heads. The recording's good enough to get them by, but it needs a little polishing up to do the material justice, even at this stage. It's a little lacking in low-end presence, so the bass drops out and kind of leaves things sounding a little hollow. Warmer percussion would also help, but all in all everything needs a little extra dose of punch. The vocals kind of work with that dry sensibility, but the performance's weak spots stand out too much as a result. The layout's alright. I've seen better, I've seen worse. It's a little boring and the text inside the booklet is rather heavy, but it's consistent and legible so it works out. Lyrically it seems to be the typical road of personal turmoil with lots of metaphors and "witty" references that make little sense to me ("You're searching for a hurricane that you don't even know exists and the dinosaurs are dying slowly..." - Huh?), so I'm not really into that. Not bad. Like I said, I'm not blown away, but there's a good foundation here. If they drop some of the whiny stuff and keep at it they'll have something, so I'm curious to see what comes next. There are some excellent riffs on this thing.