Tough call. The layout sucks. The recording is crap. Some of the riffs are totally generic metalcore junk... But then on the other hand, they have a pretty healthy dose of thrash metal going on, and the songwriting seems to be alright for the most part. A few of the dual guitar harmonies remind me of In Flames circa "The Jester Race", but this is more aggressive and a hell of a lot dirtier. It's nothing out of the ordinary, but they have a lot of potential wrapped up in here. I'm not into the typical tremolo picking stuff or the discordant chords, but the rhythm playing tends to be pretty cool, and the searing vocals aren't too shabby. I'm definitely bothered by the overall presentation of the band, though. The band name sucks. I feel like I've reviewed 100 CD's this year by bands with the words "hope" and "dies" in their band names in some form, and visually this record looks atrocious. The imagery itself isn't that bad, but the cover is blurry and has some pixilation (especially on the band logo), the typefaces are all horrendous, everything looks slapped together, and the booklet is huge for no apparent reason whatsoever, other than the fact that space is wasted because the fonts are so jumbled and they repeat similar imagery over and over. Despite the sarcastic song titles ("Roddy Piper's Magic Sunglasses", among others) the lyrics do have more of a message than usual, so they're at least good in that respect. The approach isn't that creative, but rather than whining about relationships the lyrics tend to deal with consumerism, environmental decline, etc. That leaves only one major problem: The recording. The drums are thin and rigid, I can't hear an ounce of bass (sans a few areas where they intentionally bring the bass to the front), the guitars are sort of thin and have a dirty distortion to 'em, the vocals are okay but lack texture... it's a mess. Everything is way too dirty and lacking in tonal range to pack a punch, and that hurts them a lot. With a thicker sound this would probably seem like an entirely different record. I hate to hear some of these riffs go to waste like this, but that's life. Next time around they need to put some serious effort into nailing the proper sound for their style and putting some thought into the visuals. I'd love to hear this band in another year or two under better conditions.
[Ironclad]
Running time - 40:45, Tracks: 10
[Notable tracks: So it Goes, Who Died and Made Us King?]
Ironclad Recordings - http://www.ironcladrecordings.com
