Jilted/Beyond DescriptionThis split features Jilted of Italy who are a three piece with the bassist handling the vocal duties and Beyond Description of Japan who are a four piece and have been stalwarts in the Japcore scene since 1988. Each band brings two original tracks to the table and one cover. Jilted covers "Drop Dead" originally performed by Olho De Gato, and Beyond Description do a cover of Jilted's "Follia Omicida".
Jilted play a brand of hardcore that is inspired by Wretched and Japcore with extremely manic vocals that coincide perfectly with the mayhem going on with these guys. The only time these guys slow down in their short blasts are to hit you with a short, heavy break.
Beyond Description who are legends in the Japan scene, play thrashing d-beat japcore, every now and then they will hit you off with a short but effective solo or lead. The vocals have great tone, Hideyuki (vocalist, founder of Forest Records) can hit all ranges needed with his deep shouting delivery.
Jilted's side of the recording sounded on point with a nice full guitar tone that has plenty of crunch. The bass packs a wallop with plenty of presence and treble. The drums are crisp and sit nicely right behind the bass. Beyond Description's side as well sounds phenomenal. I really liked the guitar tone, it had a great mix of treble and clean. The vocals have good placement in the mix. The bass has a rich treble heavy tone that provides just enough presence in the mix. The drums sounded good, good kick and snare tone, the cymbals ring out in clarity, you can hear the tom toms.
The layout is relatively simple but it gets the job done for me. The front cover features both band's logo and an awesome drawing of demonic skulls tearing the flesh and bones off of a person. The back of the tray art features a nice picture of both bands together with the song titles and displayed. The booklet is two pages, which is more than enough to display the lyrics for all songs in not only their native languages but in English as well.
Rating: 3.7/5
Songs Worthy of Replay: (J) Futuro Incerto (BD) Resolve
Synopsis: I like splits where the two bands actually have toured together and connected, which both of these guys have. It's cool to see bands from different countries being able to connect through the art of music. Both bands are similar enough to sound good together but different enough to stand out from one another. If you can get your hands on this through a distro, I recommend it.