Review: Inside Recess/Existential Dilemma “Split” CD

Ohio's Inside Recess starts it off with four tracks of metalcore similar to what was going on with their demo. I'd say there's more of a melodic Swedish death metal influence going on here, which they handle pretty well, and the songwriting's a little more linear too. The problems are that the sound is still too raw and the playing is still on the sloppy side, so it comes across as a little hurried and unprofessional to me. I know there's probably a certain amount of ruggedness to be intended or expected, but it's not that convincing here, especially in the speedy "The Infected", which revolves around tons of tremolo picking and a few grinding blasts as well. "TSINOBSM" opens with a brief clean passage and also tosses in some of the unexpected indie rock influences that surprised me on their demo, but sadly that whole tremolo picking nonsense dominates the piece and deadens the intrigue big time. "Work" is a little more effective in adding some rhythmic shifts and energy to its tremolo picking runs, so it's probably the strongest song herein from a writing standpoint. I also like all of the screaming vocal layering/tradeoffs and backups, which adds some energy to the songs, but the recording is too unbalanced to really get a cohesive mix. The vocals lean out front oftentimes, and the bass is hard to make out but does add density. The guitars and drums sound competent and fairly clear, but the guitar playing needs to tighten up a lot, because there's a little choppiness and faltering on most of the riffs on their half of this disc. A little more oomph to the distortion wouldn't hurt either, but it's the performances that need the most work. I'll also give 'em credit for writing some decent lyrics that are more involved and pointed than most bands of this nature: "Now we're under the dangerous arms of a leadership that wishes to dissolve every mark of progress ever made and leave benefits only to the rich, while abandoning our sweat soaked bodies in fields of mediocre, unfulfilling labor behind some desk..." Next up is Existential Dilemma with five tracks of somewhat similar material in terms of general sound quality and approach, though stylistically it's very much separated by the fact that it's slower and darker in its use of dissonance and pounding stoner/doom rhythms. "Lesion" takes almost seven minutes to run its course and admittedly gets old, while the acoustic guitar/bass instrumental "Bonestorm" is pretty fucking promising both in playing and general atmosphere. "Eat Steel, Shit Fire" is shorter and much faster, blending rocked out hardcore/punk with discordant metalcore; while elsewhere they flirt with everything from obscured black metal chords to borderline math rock, but the core is a pretty solid slab of dingy sludge. There's a lot going on, though. The recording's a little too raw to do this stuff justice, but I can tolerate it. A heavier and nastier guitar tone is essential to really let the driving force of this stuff hit home (notably in the slightly more straightforward "Harem"), and I far prefer the screaming vocals to the low growls, but whatever. The drums sound alright, you can hear the bass most of the time, etc. It sounds more like a demo to me than anything, but what can you do? The disc comes in a black and white sleeve with a consistent appearance for each band, though only Inside Recess includes an insert for lyrics. I'm not blown away by either band, though I'll give them credit for trying to push for something a little different, but they're not quite succeeding yet. Better recordings and tighter performances will definitely be necessary to fully realize this stuff, but they've both got at least something in place.