Reviewed by Shelby Foster

My car stereo only tolerated it for a few listens. Somewhere midway through the fourth, the speakers cut out and the unit swallowed the CD whole (due almost certainly to the violence of the music rather than the unreliability of the stereo). Which is a shame, since this is one of the few genuinely enjoyable review CDs I’ve heard. At their peak, Nodes create superlative metalcore along the lines of Society’s Finest, Hatebreed and innumerable others: thick, chunky and rhythmically disciplined. The album dips in quality when a slower progressive passage is glued to a song, or a fantastic two-minute nugget becomes a five-minute plod. Radiohead are often criticised for sacrificing more conventional songs (of which they are masters) for more avant-garde structures (of which, in comparison, they are novices). The same can be said of Nodes. They are most exciting and, paradoxically, dynamic when they are most conventional. Once they attempt to push the boundaries, the songs start to unravel. A 20-minute album, with songs of no more than two minutes length each, would be incredible. For now, this will do.

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