The StormHere is a five piece from Scranton, PA that has taken cues from Remembering Never, Bury Your Dead, Dead To Fall, and Martyr AD and turned it into one of the more forgettable releases that I've heard.
This is metalcore done by the books from top to bottom. Throughout this 12 track full length, you hear the same breakdowns that go nowhere and uninspired riffing and solos that did absolutely nothing for me. If you're going to be a band like this that lives and dies with breakdowns they better be original and memorable. Not only did they take breakdowns that have been done to death but they managed to make them even more boring and predictable. The best thing they did was rip off Full Blown Chaos in the "Burial Song". The vocals are decent for half the time and then the guy starts doing the worst talk singing garbage I've ever heard, not even the gang vocals couldn't save the effort, oh and then they try to throw in some clean singing which were done by guest vocalist Steve Monarch. Uh.
I really wasn't feeling the lyrics at all. The are so cliche it isn't even funny; "With my friends at my side"-"Something To Hold Onto", which is another tired song about life on the road. I mean you have cheesy straight edge songs that make me think of Remembering Never way too much and every other stereotypical nonsense that comes off way too insincere for my liking.
This one has a decent recording but it sounds too flat to me. That could also be contributed to the songs themselves though. Either way, the guitars sound pretty thin, I guess they were looking for a good tone for the tremolo picking and solos? I thought the drums sounded pretty weak. The cymbals are too low, the kick sounds terrible and I can't hear the toms to save my life. The bass is alright, but nothing to write home about. At least the vocals got plenty of room to work with.
Sadly, the best thing about this release is the layout, which was done by one of the most well known names in the business, Derek Hess. It definitely has the patent Hess style which many have come to love. When you first open the booklet, you are greeted with a awesome dual page drawing of a ship at sea. The inside of the booklet is a little more laid back using a black background with the bands logo, which is very reminiscent of his previous work and a lot of J. Bannons designs. The lyrics are displayed in vertical fashion and spaced out nice and evenly making it easy on the eyes.
Rating: 2.5/5
Songs Worthy of Replay: Burial Song
Synopsis: Most of the rating stems from the semi decent recording and the artwork. Granted there are some decent riffs throughout the 12 songs but everything is so by the books and I just can't get by the lyrics. They took a little something off every band that has gotten a name for themselves and called it their own. Honestly, it's a shame such awesome artwork got squandered on this band.