Unlike most of the hardcore bands I hear from Finland, this band is way melodic and even has a pop-punk sort of edge to their sound, complete with lightly sung vocals and lots of melodic lead lines or octave chords. The recording needs work as it sounds pretty raw and the mix isn't leveled out enough, but if they got that in order they'd be in a good position, because I really like the songwriting a lot. The vocals do need a little bit of work because they're not quite forceful enough, so rather than full-blown singing they sound kind of halfway there, but more practice should help that fall into place. There are plenty of vocal harmonies though, so that's' a good start. The songs themselves tend to be moderately fast with peppy picking patterns and a good sense of energy that works really well. Longer songs like "Time to Wake Up" drag on a bit much and lose their steam, but there are a lot of really catchy moments going on elsewhere. "The Doors Will Be Shut" opens up right away reminiscent of something off of the first Strung Out record, "Hopes for Tomorrow" has some cool little riffs that perfectly blend metal and pop-punk, "Gray" has some nice dual guitar interaction happening that ends up making for one of the best songs herein that points to a ton of promise for the band as writers, and "Home of the Brave" cranks out some faster picking patterns with quick shifts over to octave chords and makes for a really memorable set of rhythms that stands apart as well. As mentioned the sound is one of the only things holding the band back at this point. The biggest problem I have is that the vocals are louder than the music, and the guitars are actually kind of distant, so... drums and vocals end up dominating the material. The basslines get lost most of the time, but the bass tone sounds really good aside from that. I'd recommend turning up the guitars to make them the dominant element, giving the bass more room, and then tweaking the vocals and guitar tones to have a little more warmth to their characters. The guitars are decent but have a little bit of an early-90's Fat Wreck Chords bite going on (a style that I'd say was probably pretty influential to this band) that doesn't quite fit with their current standings, but might not be so bad if they get the levels evened out. The layout's kind of strange in its use of really dark photography that's hard to make out, but other than that it looks fine. Brief song explanations are included with the lyrics, and the material speaks out against racism towards immigrants, living life by routines, war, narrowmindedness, etc. Most of the lyrics have a glimmer of hope involved, despite being pretty angry at times, so there's a good mix of content. Not bad at all for a debut release. It's still rough around the edges, but if the band continues to progress from this point on their next record should be good to go, and I'll look forward to checking that out.
[On My Own]
Running time - 23:42, Tracks: 8
[Notable tracks: Endless, Gray, Home of the Brave]
One Hidden Frame - http://www.lprhardcore.net/ohf/
