No matter what the sample actually says, never start your demo with a sample of Jack Nicholson from "Batman"... it's too recognizable, and anyone who hears it is just going to immediately think "Batman" straight off, which isn't what you want. This band plays caustic and abrasive metalcore that doesn't lack fluidity despite its generally discordant nature. They do however lack direction, as their mishmash of styles sort of runs the gamut of everything that's popular within various forms of metalcore these days, from chugging rhythms, to melodic Swedish death metal styled tremolo picking, to dissonant notes and stuttered chords, clean breaks, a couple of melodic bursts that have tinges of emo going on, etc. The vocals are straight screaming with no real variation, keepings things on the aggressive side for the bulk of the disc. The recording is rugged, but I've heard worse. The drums actually sound pretty damn good, the biggest problem is the bass is hard to hear and the guitars and vocals both have a lot of unnatural distortion going on... I can't tell if it's from the levels peaking out or what the deal is. The drumming is tight, so the drum sound represents that well, but they need a smoother guitar tone to keep the writing as coherent and tangible as possible. The CD-R comes in a color sleeve with a xeroxed insert that contains the lyrics. It's not awful, but it definitely looks shoddy. They use too many fonts, I don't know why they inversed the colors on the cover images... it's just not a proper way to present your music, demo or not. Lyrically the songs strike me as typical, dealing with soured relationships and such. "Stab through one too many times, I'm still grasping for a void, Turn away to an empty grave, Your pictures left in ashes." Not bad, but they need work. This is really unoriginal, even though they're fairly good at it, but the presentation and the recording need to better reflect what the music offers. I think this band could definitely go somewhere down the road, they just need to work out the kinks.
[self-released]
Running time - 18:24, Tracks: 5
[Notable tracks: Your Wings Fell Beneath My Feet]
Today and Everything After - http://www.mantiswebs.com/today/
