Reviewed by Oscar Hyde

As this Connecticut metalcore outfit's CD stuttered through a fascinatingly cut-up introduction, I wondered how long it would take before a breakdown appeared. I didn't have long to wait at all: the appetising intro broke straight into a familiar half-time chug-chug. The album as a whole does sport many clichés of the metalcore genre, and that's fine - it's certainly enjoyable to headbang to, and the double-pedal blast-beats that pop up from time to time really are ferocious, and when the guitarists want to be ominous they're genuinely creepy rather than just resorting to a minor key and calling it a day. But that said, I'm not sure I could distinguish any song from any other, nor recall a single riff, with the possible exception of the mildly more melodic "Blind Man" and the concluding piano solo "Famine". The band's most memorable achievement is their lyrics, polemics of righteous anger, featuring lines such as "I never received your first name but I'd love to curse it" and "Lighter fluid comes to mind when you say you live like Christ". It's just a shame that such powerful diatribes didn't have a more imaginative musical framework.

The opinions expressed in this article are not necessarily those held by Cross Rhythms. Any expressed views were accurate at the time of publishing but may or may not reflect the views of the individuals concerned at a later date.

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