Novel of SinI was introduced to these guys, who happen to be out of Ravenna, Italy, by the good man who runs the HC4EverDistro. They play metalcore, which sadly is a genre that has turned into the red headed step child of the underground it seems. Why? Because of the surplus of kids (bands) wearing girls pants, eye liner, crying about girls, poor clean singing, among other things. It's ashame so many people have turned their backs on such a great genre with such a high concentration of great and talented bands. If you look, there's plenty of good bands old and new
Now onto the demo because this shit is killer. I love when a metalcore band can properly incorporate melodic parts without having to use horrible singing or anything similar. Granted in the song "Shades" the band uses some brief singing but it's more along the lines of As I Lay Dying where it is really short lived and not dragged out. For the most part the vocals are like a strained scream that don't get high or low, just right in between. Although every now and then hardcore-esque shouts can be heard. But that was only once out of 4 songs that total over 15 minutes, so it's not really that bad.
I always hate it when a band has a good/solid recording but the master volume for whatever reason is low. I mean it's not as bad as some CD's I've encountered but it's low enough where if I'm listening to a regular CD and then this comes on afterwards I have to turn up the volume. Aside from that though the recording is good. The guitar has a really sweet tone, just thick enough to add the crunch to the breakdowns and clean enough for lead parts. The drums sound fantastic, very good tone all around. Great placement on the vocals. The bass has good presence and a good tone for this style of metalcore, maybe a little more treble wouldn't hurt to stand out more.
Considering it's a demo, this thing looks fucking snazzy. It's a single panel that is printed on gloss paper. The front cover is a cool photoshop design of contrasted wings over a black background with shades of gray. The back of the panel has the tracklisting with the band s contact info. The CD is professionally duplicated with the wings from the front cover contrasted in shades of red. The one gripe I have (which is also fairly common) is the lack of a lyric sheet or insert.
Rating: 3.7/5
Songs Worthy of Replay: Weak Light
Synopsis: Better than average metalcore from Italy that brings to mind As I Lay Dying, Unearth and Caliban. There are no whiny, pussy singing or anything like that, which is what I need because I can't stand that herb shit. So keep that in mind fellas for future writing haha.
All of these songs can be listened to at the bands Myspace Page, and if you happen to be from Europe, you can purchase directly from the band (obviously!). If you're from N. America you can get them at my boys distro:Click here to purchase from HC4EverDistro.com