11 tracks of pissed off old school styled hardcore with nicely gruff vocal shouts that add a little more fierceness to their generally standard approach. Admittedly they do throw in lots of little dual guitar textures with octave chords and tactful melodic spices, but at the same time some of the picking patterns are pretty chunky and lean towards a metallic hardcore edge, though the end result has little or no metal involved whatsoever. "It Never Dies" opens with an instrumental passage that starts things off with an unnecessary sample before building into a surprisingly cool amount of swirling melody, but don't expect much of that elsewhere, as evidenced by the fact that the core of this track is among the more in your face material herein. In "Lights Out!" they definitely succeed with a tried and true hardcore track with a good mix of tempos and just enough of a contemporary twist, "Jerry's Kids" is often slower and lets the bass do more of the legwork throughout, and there are also plenty of relatively straightforward numbers like "Bloodlines" and "Holding On". The recording's not bad, but it could use a little more work to really benefit the band's approach. I don't think they should go for a metal type of sound at all, though they could probably make that kind of crunch work. It's really just the little specifics that need some polishing up here. For instance, the vocals have a little bit of a thin separation to 'em that keeps them from blending in with the core of the mix, while most of the elements could similarly use just a little more of a low-end push to keep things full and resonant. They're on the right track, but it needs and extra jolt to really do the trick. Almost more importantly I think they just need to tighten up their performances as much as possible, because there are a couple of instances where timing inconsistencies that can't be solely tied to any one particular instrument (or the vocals) create a hitch in the listening experience, and therefore subdue the overall power of the material. The layout's 50/50 for me since the cover art looks really cool and is done in a different sort of style from the norm, but the inner pages lose a little bit of that intrigue and stick with boring looking typefaces. No big deal, though. The lyrics tend to deal with friendship and personal issues as well as maintaining a hopeful sensibility in the face of hardships and all that stuff. Nothing's really grabbing my attention or anything, but again, not a big deal. Overall these guys need to push for a little more variety and overall power in their songwriting to really leave a mark, so hopefully they'll get there on the next one, 'cause the most energetic aspects of this disc are pretty damn good, but the overall impact suffers a bit as the minor faults start to stack up against the strengths.
[Blood & Ink]
Running time - 16:56, Tracks: 10
[Notable tracks: It Never Dies, Lights Out!, Holding On]
Blood & Ink Records - http://www.bloodandinkrecords.com
