This is another in the ever growing legions of metalcore bands out there building off of the melodic Swedish style. This band isn't great and aren't doing anything terribly different, but at the very least their generic dual guitar harmonies and tremolo picking runs are decent and they do have a little bit more of a churning attack to their midpaced breakdowns, occasionally even breaking off some dissonant rhythms that actually have some promise. I don't care for the vocals because the screaming just sounds too forced, and the recording needs tweaking, but this is listenable. The vocals are mixed too loud which accents their strained texture and distracts from the music, but other than that it sounds decent. The drums are too taut and are often a hindrance, while the bass tends to vanish, but I do usually find the dry guitar tone to be rather nice. Some of the thinner note-based riffs suffer with this guitar tone, but the thicker chords and gnashing picking patterns work great with this style of distortion. Despite lacking originality, what they do have in their favor are songs that average around four minutes and tend to remain fairly consistent. There are some Meshuggah sounding staccato power chords and a few chugga breaks that get somewhat stale, but you won't find any generic discordant crap or overly technical chaotic metalcore runs at all, and as mentioned the Swedish influences are about as tactful as you can get here without actually being impressive. Many of the songs do, however, sound pretty damn similar to one another, which gets tiresome about halfway through the disc. The title track is a succinct acoustic instrumental that sounds ridiculously beautiful, though. No shit. If the entire record sounding that pristine I'd be in total awe. It literally sounds perfect and is a shockingly well written and performed piece, so... clearly these guys have some talents that they're not employing as often as they should be. "Malice in Wonderland" is one of the more energetic tunes and is among my favorites, though I have to confess that it sounds like it was lifted from Darkest Hour almost in its entirety. The atypical melodic chords and alternating rhythms that pop up in tracks like "To the Nines" are the most promising elements of the disc, but sadly this does point to one minor flaw in the writing simply because a lot of those excellent riffs are surround by tolerable mediocrity, so there's a lot of force going to waste. Oddly enough the front and back covers look okay, but somewhat plain to me, whereas most of the photography and design techniques inside the booklet are more visually interesting. It's a consistent look overall, though. The lyrics aren't bad but do little for me, at times flirting with light christian undertones and other times dealing in more typical personal references to relationship turmoil with lines like "I hear your name in the wind, My collapsible heart skips a beat, You remain in my head only as a bittersweet memory..." I don't know, I'm definitely sick of this style and honestly think labels need to stop signing so many bands that sound like just this, but... in their defense these kids do write some solid riffs, and the songs are bearable. It still needs more innovation and overall impact to catch my ear, though. I can give 'em credit for what they've got, but this is still a rehashed sounding record despite its few strengths.
[Metal Blade]
Running time - 40:17, Tracks: 10
[Notable tracks: Calibrate the Virus, The Fall of Rome, To the Nines]
Metal Blade Records - http://www.metalblade.com
