Review: The Zimmerman Note “New Deception” CD

Ehhh, I'm torn on this one. It's metalcore that's way more focused on the metal, and in their defense they do tend to stay away from melodic Swedish riffs in favor of thrashy picking patterns and nice melodic leads. Even their dual guitar harmonies sound cool and don't have too much of that totally typical Swedish swing happening (see the title track for evidence of this). But the strained vocal snarls/growls and churning breakdown riffs aren't doing much for me. I mean, bottomline, it's generic, there's no denying that. But even at first listen it's apparent that there are some cool little subtle technical influences happening, and they do write quality riffs, it's just that the vocals don't really work for me. I don't know. The songwriting's on the right track for sure, they've got a good level of energy going on and the riffs transition rather fluidly despite some inconsistencies, so... damn, it's a hard call. They do need to work on the recording for sure. Right now it's a little muddy and definitely too raw for their talents. The mix seems pretty even but there's not a lot of brightness happening, so it's kind of a jumble where a lot of character and detail gets lost both in the texture of the instruments as well as in the actual intricacies of the riffs themselves. The bassist seems to be pretty damn good and follows the guitarist well, and his tone is pretty unique, but smoother lows and brighter mids and whatnot would really add some much needed crispness to the way the material's portrayed. "Pascal's Wager" is among the few tracks that builds around tremolo picking, and while that speed is a great kick in the ass, it's still the thrash-based playing that carries the track - the tremolo runs and weird discordant mosh stuff deaden the blow (and the latter riffing sounds really forced and out of place). "Gluttonous Prayer" uses spoken vocals and lots of thick power chords layered with an eerie dissonant run for a more creative and overall powerful intro, but then they start to wander into chaotic territory and lose steam. Opener "Onyx Tide" and "New Deception" are the most consistent songs in both their quality of riffs and the strength of their consistent deliveries, which pays off in making them the standouts for me. The artwork is all done in a high contrast style that kind of mirrors the color scheme and bold style of that whole trendy Communist propaganda poster artwork and stuff, which is kind of nice here, but then for some reason the booklet is all jumbled and has really ugly fonts and shit that don't match the cleanliness of the art at all. The lyrics seem to deal with socio-political commentary in large part, but certain elements could be personal as well, since things are handled in a rather open manner. "This is how the wicked consume the minds of the weak and pollute their hearts. This is the human condition. This is how we drown. We are but cattle led to the slaughter." I hate to give this a 5/10 because I tend to see a lot of potential in things, and this band does have some quality happening here, but the end result is just too tired and generic for me, with the recording inefficiencies kind of dealing the final blow. These dudes ought to just be a thrash metal band, I think they'd be much stronger heading down that path without so much deviation.