CarpathianCarpathian who are from Melbourne, Australia are quite big in their native country, having played the entire Australian leg of the Taste of Chaos Tour with horrible fucking bands like The Used and Aiden. They have been around since 2003 and have been tested by a couple of line up changes. Perhaps that explains why they went from being a breakdown laden metalcore band with songs like "Drop It Like It's Hot" and "Sucker Punch," to a band that sounds all too familiar to the Deathwish Inc. roster. It seems like on "Nothing To Lose" Carpathian thought they could achieve the success of Parkway Drive and this time it seems they want to get signed to Victory like Comeback Kid.
Really the only similarities between their poor attempts at metalcore and "Isolation" are the down-tuned guitars. The vocals are completely different, the lyrics and overall approach of the band has taken a 180 (even though it is still the same vocalist). Instead of drawing inspiration from the likes of Parkway Drive, I Killed The Prom Queen, and Throwdown they turned to bands like Modern Life Is War, Killing Dream, Comeback Kid, and most of the bands on the Deathwish Inc. roster.
Aside from the fact that I feel these guys are not sincere in their motives for writing music, at all, this is a pretty decent album. For the most part they nail the sound of mid-paced, melodic hardcore with tons of introspective personal lyrics, though things become repetitive after awhile.
The first of the 10 songs is "Isolation" which reminded me a bit of Poison The Well, what with the melodic chugga-chug going on behind the melodic lead and what not. It is a technique that is employed throughout various parts of the CD (see "The Cold Front"). The following song, "Cursed" (which features guest vocals from JD of Shipwreck AD) starts off with a mid-paced melodic verse typical of the bands I mentioned earlier, until the band jumps into a Throwdown-esque part momentarily before revisiting the verse that started off the song. This happens again in the song "Ceremony" (featuring Pat Flynn of Have Heart) and ironically the song is only one second shorter than "Cursed" and eerily similar. Because of things like this the song-writing can come off as being formulaic.
Rating: 3/5
Songs Worthy of Replay: "Isolation" & "Seventy K"
Synopsis: As I said in the review, this would be a pretty good album but sadly for me the external shit gets in the way of me enjoying this. Maybe it will be different for you. They missed the boat on making it big with the metalcore thing and they missed the boat on the melodic hardcore wave as well. Couple years too late fellas.
Check these links out and be the judge for yourself because at the end of the day my opinion is no more valid than yours.