I'll level with you: I wasn't gonna review this, but I think the band had included a note with the disc that said they'd appreciate a review even if I didn't like it, and I respect that.? I'm not entirely sure it was this band who included said note, but I'm pretty sure it was.? I hope it was anyway, because, well... I don't really like this.? So here goes nothin'... but I'm going to be as fair as I can, because there are some quality elements here. First, though, the bad. Strike one is that the layout is an abomination. I'm not trying to be rude, but the outer artwork on this thing is absolutely terrible. The front and back covers alone, which depict fake "scarring" and fake "blood" (all Photoshopped) on the pale and poorly photographed arm of a gothy looking female (Possibly the band's vocalist?) look like shit. That kind of poor visual appearance always makes me toss CD's into the "I'll get to it if I get to it" pile. Strike two: There's actually a fucking song called "Scary Kitty". Seriously. Now, that's the kind of thing that tends to make me say to myself, "Yeah, I'm probably not gonna bother reviewing this." Sorry, but no mature band that wants to be taken seriously would ever title a song "Scary Kitty". Bad move. I don't know anything about this band but I get the vibe that they're probably around my age, and I ain't a fuckin' kid anymore, so... "Scary Kitty" isn't cuttin' it with me, you know? Now, oddly enough the inner spread of the booklet looks a shitload better than anything else here. The handwritten text is an insane pain in the ass to read, but it looks cool, and the splotchy abstract paintings are a much better fit as well. Not great, but immeasurably stronger than the fucking cover "art" (and I use that term loosely). Musically the band plays an atmospheric brand of pseudo goth, pseudo industrial metal. It's basically simple, heavy grooves accented by keyboards and fronted by over the top female vocals that range from operatic singing to overdramatic spoken passages or more subdued singing that's a little easier to swallow. It's not really a nu-metal kind of thing at all though, it just kind of feels confused as to what it's trying to be. The recording is really good and all of the tones are pretty effective, and the girl isn't so bad a singer (at her best she sounds like Nicole Lee from Znowhite, which totally rules), but the songs do nothing for me and the lyrics are awful. I just think the vocals waver all over the place too much, and a lot of the dramatic shit is so god damn cheesy that I can't tolerate it at all. If the music was thrashier and she sang the way she does in the chorus of "In Two" all the time it could be kind of cool, but the writing is just fucked up. The tracks range from four to eight minutes and not one of them feels like a complete song. I don't know if they're trying to be creative or avant-garde or something by making this a weird conceptual or dramatic thing that doesn't really follow a verse/chorus structure (despite the fact that all of the riffs are pretty basic) and uses a lot of layering or whatever, but honestly, if they'd cut the shit and just write straight up metal songs they could probably be a decent band. I don't know though, because they follow more of a linear structure in their cover of Ministry's "Scarecrow", and I'm not diggin' that either. Oh, there's also a bunch of live videos, some photos, and a behind the scenes clip of the recording sessions on the CD-Rom portion of the disc. I don't know, I guess maybe it's just not possible for me to like this. I feel like there's talent buried in here, and some of those Znowhite sounding vocals kick ass, but I'm just not into this at all. It comes across as forced and overdramatic and I just get nothing from it. Sorry. There's a good recording and the girl can sing very well when she stops trying to be weird or what have you, but... this isn't for me. I mean, if this is where there hearts are at, this is what they should pursue, but I truly believe that if they'd drop all the bullshit there's a potentially solid atmospheric female fronted metal band in there somewhere.
[self-released]
Running time - 28:33, Tracks: 5
[Notable tracks: none of ?em]
The Missing - http://www.themissing.com
