Okay, I don't really like this at all. These guys are obviously talented musicians, despite the fact that they need to tighten up their performances, and there are some fucking awesome riffs here, but these dudes can't write a song to save their lives. Mosh part, crazy dissonant run, melodic chord progression, abrasive lead riff, hammer-on/pull-off run, staggered chugga pinch harmonic rhythm, Slayer riff, weird guitar harmony, smooth clean passage... and that's about one minute of any given song. They're not one of those crazy go nuts bands, but they are all over the fucking place, so there's absolutely nothing to follow for more than a few seconds - an even bigger problem considering that most of these songs run as many as five, six, or seven minutes. I literally feel like every song is three, four, or maybe fucking 10 songs crammed into one. Budding talent? Sure. But this record still sounds like an obscene mess. The brief acoustic instrumental "Forfeiture of Thumbs" is superb, and shows that writing abilities are damn sure not completely absent here, but they need to look at the big picture and work that into the vast majority of their material. The production isn't that bad. It's a little rugged, and the guitars have a raw sort of 90's metalcore bite to 'em, but the bass tone is sweet and the clean guitars work nicely with that. The drums are really rigid, but it only bothers me because the rhythm section sounds so separated from the harshness of the guitars and the relentless vocal screams. I can deal with it, but a lot of the guitar layering gets too caustic and sloppy when they end up slightly out of synch with one another. The drummer's tight, the bassist seems tight, but the guitar players need to reign in their chops a bit. There's also some CD-Rom stuff that includes a Flash animation deal, some lyrics and stuff, and then a Quicktime video that sucks. The video is shot from behind the band so you see as much of the moshing crowd as you do the band members, and the sound quality is terrible. Skip it. I like the visuals here if for no other reason than the busy layering of images and textures creates an interesting effect. A lot of the withered looking typefaces work nicely in that scheme as well. I'm not that into the lyrics just because they're pretty typical and to me they don't particularly say a whole lot of anything: "I'll just sit here and stutter, Breaking every thought to see the face that disgusts me, Shaking and crying is how you left me, I thank you now for the strength that is bleeding and interleaving through my soul..." I'm tired of hearing bands do this stuff. 53+ minutes and I'm betting there are at the very least 200 different riffs on this record. And of those 200, maybe 25 of them are incredible, 25 others are good, 50 are tolerable, and the rest range from filler to boring to useless. This band could be fucking awesome if they would think about composing and arranging songs instead of trying to figure how to sound insane by cramming as many changes as possible into five or so minutes... all that really does is make your band have to count a whole lot, it doesn't make your songs very enjoyable. Maybe next time.
[Thorp]
Running time - 53:34, Tracks: 10
[Notable tracks: Forfeiture of Thumbs, Nostradamus Would have Wanted it This Way]
Thorp Records - http://www.thorprecords.com
