What the hell? Imagine my surprise when a good looking and atypical layout and a bunch of photos of the band members in suits ends up being just another crappy metalcore CD? Son of a bitch. I was figuring this was gonna be some kind of quirky indie rock sort of thing or something, and I actually expected it to be good, so boy was I disappointed when I pressed play. This basically sucks. Eight tracks and just about a half-hour of totally disjointed metalcore that runs from midpaced crunchiness and tremolo picking riffs, to amplymelodic chord progressions, sloppy dual guitar runs, weird rocked out rhythms, wannabe Iron Maiden gallop riffs, plenty of random dissonance, and so on... all with harsh screaming vocals that occasionally drop back to spoken passages or whatever. Oh, and did I mention that the drums are programmed, too? Yeah. Strike three, you're out. Seriously, this is really bad. The songwriting is absolutely horrible, and the weak recording isn't doing 'em any favors either. The guitar tone is thin and crispy, highlighting plenty of sloppy performance areas, the drum machines are super thin and unbalanced, the bass is plunky (and thin, like everything else), and the vocals are too dominant in the mix. If the songwriting were amazing I could possibly live with the sound quality because it is mildly competent, but they need to beef this shit up big time. The drum programming would be alright if the overall mix were thicker, the only reason I'm holding the drum machines against them is because their songs suck so bad already that the fact that the drums are programmed is just another straw towards breaking the proverbial camel's back. "Winter, Women, and Funerals" contains one dissonant riff about a minute in that's almost good, but the solos are pure shit and I refuse to tolerate that sloppy, fake ass, hokey, mock metal bullshit. And the same goes for the intro to "My Murderous Throne", which sounds like it was stolen from some late-80's progressive metal track, only made sloppy and totally insincere in the process. God damnit, this is just a terrible CD. The only thing I can give these guys credit for is the fact that the artwork looks really nice. The CD-R comes in a slim jewel case with a full color booklet, and the bold coloring and illustrations really catch the eye and stand out. The lyrics eat it too, though: "Now my heart beats for two, Only there's no me without you, Here I used to lay, but now I am no more, This is my negation..." No thanks, fellas. There are two music videos on the CD-Rom portion of the disc as well (yes, actual lo-fi music videos, not live footage), and what blows me away is that despite the lacking film quality, cheesy metal poses, and other intentionally goofy trappings, the band doesn't look like some trendy hipster outfit, nor do they look like little kids. They look like normal, average dudes who might actually listen to real metal. So how it is that this material sucks as insufferably bad as it does is beyond me. I'm sorry, but this is some of the worst songwriting I've ever encountered from the metalcore genre, and I've encountered some dreadful songwriting from the metalcore genre in my day. But all of these songs are pretty terrible, there's just no logical sense of unification throughout any of the riffs, segments, or complete songs, and I really do not find any value in this music at all. So, yeah, look for this band to get signed and somehow become popular any day now, especially if they happen to be christians. Lord knows (figure of speech) most contemporary metalcore labels would package and release literal dogshit if they could get it to sound like distorted guitars and screaming. Next.
[self-released]
Running time - 28:18, Tracks: 8
[Notable tracks: I really don't care for any of these songs]
Stab! Stab! Stab! - http://www.stabstabstab.com
