Your Eyes My DreamsSons of the first state, these guys hail from Dover, DE. They play melodic metalcore influenced by Jesus and the likes of As I Lay Dying, minus any clean singing sections. I've been seeing this album being referred to as a hardcore record, which is absolutely the furthest thing from the truth, if you actually think that you're an idiot. They formed in 2003, since that time they have released a 3 song demo in 2005, all of which made there way onto this 11 song debut full length (Society's Flawed Perspective Of The Truth, Anna Rebeka and Treason, War, And The Tyranny Of Evil Man).
I swear sometimes it seems so many bands are just riding the coat tail of religion to attain success. With more and more Jesus-core bands popping up everywhere it gets harder and harder to decipher the sincere from the con artists, but I suppose the same could be said for any genre.
I'll have to admit this wasn't a terrible album from a strictly musical standpoint. They're competent musicians who are certainly capable of handling their respective instruments. The breakdowns are on point and pretty decent. They are able to throw in some pretty nice riffs here and there that have some nice melodic layering. The vocals are actually a pretty good, although at times they get a little monotonous but I'll take that any day over poorly sung chorus, they also throw in some pretty decent gang chants.
The lyrics on this were atrocious though. I swear it seems like there are more Christian bands that are over saturating every scene that you can think of. The bridge between the amount of vegan/straight-edge bands vs. Christian/Catholic bands has certainly closed. Just imagine the equivalent of a cheesy straight edge band filled with a bunch of 15 year olds talking about their strength in purity, except just replace purity with god.
The production was strong. The guitar had a nice mix of cleanness and distortion, so the more melodic parts would really ring out, the subtle use of feedback in parts were a nice touch. The bass guitar sounded decent, not the greatest tone in the world but it's enough to hang your hat on. The drums sounded decent, good and dense, plenty of volume on the bass drum without becoming obnoxious. The vocals were okay but the echo started to grate on me after awhile.
Not feeling this ones layout at all. The title of the album says weapons are useless, yet they show a business man with a gun and than on the back page of the booklet "God" is supposedly holding the gun to the business man's face, yeah real useless if you ask me. Inside the booklet all the lyrics are displayed in descending fashion over a smoke filled sky. I must say I appreciate the lack of a band shot, even though the guys don't look like total fairies.
Rating: 2/5
Songs Worthy of Replay: Anna Rebeka
Thesis: The music wasn't terrible but it sure as hell wasn't anything immaculate. I'm sure if you love Christ this will be right up your alley but for I would much rather listen to countless other bands without all of dogmatic preaching. This record sure won't convert you into the sheep that's for sure.