Five tracks of burly metalcore from Massachusetts. This is pretty standard stuff. It's not too metal, there's no old school hardcore stuff... it's just the typical heavy NYHC type of sound. The vocals are gruff midrange shouts (the guitarist also does some slightly lower vocals), the music is moderately paced with lots of heavy grooves and a little bit of lead playing, etc. The end of "No Regard" throws in some faster picking, and there's more vocal variety in "Bridgeburner" than the other tracks, but for the most part things are sort of stagnant. The production needs a lot of work. For one thing the output volume is way too quiet. In addition there's a lot of muddiness to all of the instruments. The vocals sound pretty good, they cover the widest tonal range and have the most clarity, but everything else could be cleaned up. The drums are way too flimsy and fake sounding, the bass sounds pretty good but needs more definition to step aside from the guitars, and the guitars... well, they just need better distortion. I don't know exactly what the problem with the current distortion is, it sort of works, but something's missing and it's just not precise enough. The CD-R comes in a slim jewel case with a black and white insert card. The cover has an image of some people being rounded together against a wall by military personnel in some rundown locale, and it looks sort of pixilated so I assume this was printed from a home computer or something. The only information inside is the song titles, the band lineup, recording/contact information, and a thanks list. No lyrics or anything. I can make out a few lines about being "shit out of luck" and some stuff about "the barrel of a gun", so I have to assume that this is the usual toughguy fare. It doesn't feel authentic to me, though. Not that such styles ever truly are, but this feels particularly postured to me, and that's one of my biggest problems with the demo. Despite the fact that it's unoriginal and generally isn't the most interesting thing in the world, they could be alright with a better recording and a message that's more personal. This isn't a terrible demo, it's just premature.
[self-released]
Running time - 15:02, Tracks: 5
[Notable tracks: Pursuit of Truth]
Hard Times - http://www.masshardtimes.com
