Review: Tears From the Sky “Power Symbol” CD

Hmmm... this Canadian act plays melodic metalcore that has a weird rock vibe to it that's almost cool, but doesn't really do much for me in the end. Part of that's because I think the recording's really weak on this thing. The drums sound really unnatural and clicky, the bass lacks force in the mix, and the guitars are entirely too thin. The end result is a mix that sounds a little flat and hollow, so they need to add much more meat to the guitar tones, turn the bass up, and for the love of Christ (figure of speech) add some warmth to those god damn drums, guys! Expect your usual doses of chunky breakdowns, dual guitar harmonies, lightly dissonant melodic chords, and strained vocals taking on a pretty even blend of hardcore and metal. I'll say this much: Their bassist kicks ass and tends to run wild on his own to add color to the tracks, and it's cool that they're drawing more from Iron Maiden than they are from In Flames and that whole style, though in the end the Swedish tangent is one that becomes quite necessary to reference in descriptive terms. On occasion they make an attempt at throwing in vocal harmonies and such but the singing pretty much blows, so they either need to practice more or toss that shit because it's too forced. "As One ?til the End" has more dual guitar interaction going on and changes up the vocal patterns and such at times, not to mentioning dropping some weird playing that's an even split between rock, metal, and hardcore, but it's still not gripping me at all. I don't know, there's simply not that much diversity from song to song on this thing at all. The layout looks decent and uses a minimal color scheme, though admittedly the generic military imagery is tired and serves no purpose since the lyrics are all painfully generic and unexpressive bouts of personal turmoil and random nonsense like, "It's fucking rock ?n' roll ?till the end," or, "In absence of abstract forces, shivers went through my whole frame..." I'll pass. Sadly the biggest issue these guys have to face is that their songs are boring. I don't really dislike the riffs that much, and they seem to be decent players, but nothing catches my attention at all. The tempos all stick within the same midpaced to subtly fast drive, and the entire EP just kind of falls together in a lump without any real sense of variation or energy. I don't know, I'm kind of confused by this one because they'd be better off without any of the hardcore influences and the whole release is inconsistent, straight down to the lyrics and the layout and everything. I'm just not totally clear on what these guys are going for.