Carnophage - Deformed Future//Genetic Nightmare

I discovered Carnophage on some random site that advertised underground technical death bands. This is where I found some other tech death groups like Slaughtery and Arkhum (both of which I’ve written reviews on). But to be honest, most of the newer technical death bands I’ve been discovering recently have been pretty mediocre. Probably the best NEW ones I’ve heard are Cerebric Turmoil, Dystrophic, and Rings of Saturn. Other than that (and a few others), the newer tech death scene (especially the European section) seems to have grown pretty tasteless. But right now, I’m getting ready to review an album by the Turkish technical death band Carnophage. On the plus side, though, the album cover was done by my favorite visual artist; Par Olofsson (who did the covers for Planetary Duality, Incurso, Majesty and Decay, All Shall Fall, and countless other records).  

One of the things that REALLY brings this album way down and makes it extremely hard to enjoy is how it was produced. Especially how the guitars sound..eww. The guitars were either extremely under-produced or extremely overproduced. After listening to this album for almost four months, it’s starting to sound like every aspect of the record had WAY too much production work done on it. There’s almost no bass at all; even the bass guitar is high-pitched, just listen to the bass solo in the beginning of Bone Nails. The song structure in the album seems a bit too jumbled and unorganized. I have a hard time keeping up with the seemingly random song structure (which there isn’t really at all).

It seems like these guys are making an honest attempt at creating an EXTREMELY complex skeleton for their sound. The cool thing is, they succeeded in doing so, but it’s way too random an unorganized. It’s like they just made complex music for the sake of being extremely complex. Just like how when Rings of Saturn first started out, they were technical literally for the sake of being TECHNICAL! It’s the same idea, but it doesn’t sound good. I can’t keep up with the music’s tempo because it changes too fast and too often. I just can’t get past the fact of how unorganized and overly-complex these guys made this album.

Ok, besides all that, this album checks out. All of the musicians have plenty of talent and technical skill. My favorite part is that the bassist is the best musician in the group. In my favorite song on the record, Bone Nails, the guitarists start out by taking the lead. Then, everything goes quiet and the bassist starts playing the lick that ends up being the main structure that drives the rest of the song. Bone Nails is a surprisingly slow song considering the amount of technicality and complexity it carries. Although the drummer (who is REALLY quiet and hard to hear) is going absolutely mad in the background, the guitars (which drown everything out) make the song seem much slower because they’re not doing constant high-pitched shredding.

That just reminded me of a unique trait that Carnophage has. The technicality in the guitars isn’t super high-pitched like Brain Drill and Rings of Saturn, but not super low like Fleshgod and Severed Crotch. Instead, 90% of the technicality lies more in the mid-ranges, which isn’t something that you hear very often in the genre. I’m giving this record a 10/20 and would only recommend it to easily-impressed technical death fans. 

Korpiklaani - Ukon Wacka

Here’s what I’ve noticed when it comes to European folk music (not the shitty American folk), there’s two types: the really atmospheric and melodic kind, and the really upbeat and fast kind that they play at get-togethers. Ok, now let’s put that into folk METAL perspective: the soft and melodic folk can be found in Ensiferum and Eluveitie, and the really upbeat folk can be found in none other than KORPIKLAANI! Being all about fun and (obviously) beer, Korpiklaani delivers a one-of-a-kind musical experience that is hard to compare to anything else (no, Alestorm doesn’t count, they’re not nearly cool enough). When I had the pleasure to see Korpiklaani live a few months ago (in case you’re wondering, I was in fact totally smashed by the time they came on), it was like a party instead of a metal show. In the pit, people weren’t moshing, they were running towards each other from opposite corners, interlocking arms, and dancing around like some kind of motherfucking square dance! It was one of the most fun metal experiences I’ve ever had and I suggest you check them out since they’re coming back again with Moonsorrow. But let’s talk about my personal favorite record by these Finns, Ukon Wacka.

For some reason, Korpiklaani’s music is hard to break down because it’s so damn easy to just describe it in a few sentences. But I’m going to make an honest attempt at it. Well first of all, all of the songs on this album (except for the Motorhead cover) are in Finnish, which I understand perfectly. And after reading all the lyrics, whoever wrote them was obviously either really fucking happy or heavily intoxicated because they’re all about partying, alcohol, and having a hell of a good time.

The coolest thing about Korpiklaani is that they go all out and be ORIGINAL. They wear elk-skin clothes and leather moccasins, they have an accordion player, a fucking amazing guy on the fiddle, and I think one of the guys plays the bagpipes but I’m not sure. The one thing that I DO know for sure is that none of the folk instruments are tracked or played on the keyboards. Not that it makes any difference, but it really shows how dedicated these guys are to being PURE FUCKING FOLK METAL!

 Although personally, folk metal usually isn’t my first choice, Korpiklaani, Ensiferum, and Eluveitie have never ceased to impress me. In other words, I’m not a huge fan of folk metal, but this album is fucking FANTASTIC and one of the most fun records in my collection. My favorite member of the band is the fiddle player. And it’s not because of the instrument he plays, it’s because he’s one of the best fiddle players that I’ve heard since I first started listening to The Dixie Dregs (a southern progressive rock band my dad is obsessed with) when I was ten years old. Overall, the individual members don’t have too much technical skill, but as a whole band, the creativity is undeniable; I repeat, UNDENIABLE. These guys have managed to play the exact same kind of music for almost ten years and have it NEVER get old or bland. Instead, each album seems to be better than the last. I would give this album 18/20 for being my favorite non-Eluveitie folk metal album. My favorite song on this record is definitely Tequilla (which is ironically the single). This album NEEDS to have a home in EVERYBODY’S music library. 

DevilDriver - Pray for Villains

Let me get this straight so there isn’t any confusion: this is one of the most important albums in my collection. It’s so important that one of the patches on my jacket consists of the Pray for Villains album cover. Ok, but why is this album so important and why has it been so influential to what I listen to? Well first off, I’ve been listening to this album since the year it was released, so it’s not like I’m having an initial overreaction. So after three years of constantly listening to this album (although it’s become less frequent since they released a better album last year that I wrote a review on), I’m finally ready to tell you the utter importance of this album and the impact it’s had on my music taste. But this is an album review, right? I’m supposed to tell you about THE ALBUM, not my personal connection with it!

The first thing that this album has is extreme variety of sound and style. While still managing to keep the memorable catchiness of their signature sound, DevilDriver manages to pack in songs with more driving tempos like Pray for Villains and I’ve Been Sober. As well as that, this album is different from all the other DevilDriver albums because it has the most……damn how do I word it..catchiness with a rock and roll twist? I don’t know how to say it, but the sound I’m trying to put into words can be found in Pure Sincerity, Back with a Vengeance, and Another Night in London.

Probably the thing that bothers most people about DevilDriver is the really rough yelled vocals and how they sound. For me, I can’t see this fitting in ANY other kind of music other than DevilDriver. In any other situation, those vocals wouldn’t sound good at all. But in DevilDriver, those fucking gritty yells do nothing but act as helium to bring the music up to impossible heights. But in my opinion, the vocalist isn’t the most talented and skilled member of the band, it’s the crazy fuck that plays the drums!

Their drummer can play like no other drummer I’ve ever heard before! Sure, there are plenty of drummers that are as skilled and creative as him (some are more), but they’re all skilled and creative in a much different way than him. This guy can play a really super fucking catchy pattern like at the beginning of Pure Sincerity, and PERFECTLY transition into an explosive blast beat that can easily be mistaken for a goddamn stampede! Not only can he do that, but he can do it without messing up the song or making things sound weird. That’s another thing I love about DevilDriver’s music that I forgot to mention before; every single second of every single song can sound good with any kind of drum pattern you can think of that’s still on time with the music. If you ask me, that’s pretty fucking hard to do!

Although all of the members thrive in creativity, the least-skilled (but still amazing) member is unfortunately the bassist. The reason why I don’t consider him to be skilled is because he never goes outside of the root-notes, he rarely plays an epic fill riff, and you can’t really hear him at all. But I know he’s legit because I watched him play his bass two feet in front of MY FACE. But what he does PERFECTLY is give the music a FUCKING HUGE lower-end and be fucking tight as hell with the drummer. If the bassist and the drummer are rock-solid, it’s hard not to sound good.

Oh! I just came up with a word to describe the sound I was trying to earlier: GROOVE! When you listen to the beginning of Pure Sincerity, you hear GROOVE, and they play it fucking PERFECTLY. You hear it even more in Back with a Vengeance. Ok, so obviously I’m giving this album a perfect score, so I guess I should just throw that out there if it wasn’t obvious enough. If you haven’t heard this album yet, check it out because every single second of it is packed with so much energy and GROOVE that it’s easily addictive. 

Upcoming Reviews

Here are some bands I hope to review this weekend and next week:

Carnophage (technical death)
Eyes Set to Kill (metalcore)
Oceano (deathcore)
Immolation (death metal)
Between the Buried and Me (progressive death)
Korpiklaani (folk metal)
Enter Shikari (screamo)

Sonata Arctica - The Days of Grays

I’ve listened to this album so much that it feels like it’s been in my collection for over five years. When in fact, it’s only been a mere year and a half. Yes, I’ve known about this band for quite a while, in fact, my introduction to them was seeing them live with Mutiny Within and Powerglove. I was mainly there for Mutiny Within, but I can remember my experience of first hearing Sonata Arctica like it just happened an hour ago. The crowd was mingling amongst themselves when all of the lights suddenly turned off. The intro track “Everything Fades to Gray” played and then let a couple moments of silence create suspense amongst the audience. Then, the lights turned back on like the band wasn’t ready to start their set. Almost three whole minutes later, the lights quickly dimmed all the way and the soft sound of the violas and violins played the beginning of Deathaura as the band quickly entered the stage and exploded with a sound that was so beautiful and powerful that it brought some of the people there to tears (literally). When I saw those people, I could tell that they had a HUGE emotional connection to the band’s music.

As that one song continued on, I was sucked in more and more with each passing second. When Deathaura finally finished, I was sold; these guys took the show and turned it into a blinding star made completely of sound. My emotional connection to this album has been so strong that (for some reason) I’ve been afraid to admit that to me, it’s one of the best albums ever written. I know that the hardcore Sonata Arctica and power metal fans typically prefer the older Arctica albums over the new ones (although all of them are nothing short of amazing). For me, I prefer the really early albums, but The Days of Grays won my heart from the beginning (not because it was the first Arctica album I ever heard, but because it was and still is the BEST I’ve ever heard).

I’m going to be honest, Tony Kakko’s singing voice doesn’t fit my description of an amazing singing voice. But oddly enough, his voice managed to pierce my thick-ass ribcage, go clean through my frozen heart, out the other side, and keep going for an infinite distance. In most of the other Arctica albums, Tony’s singing sounds a little too much on the whiny side, but not so much in The Days of Grays, therefore making it MUCH easier for me to enjoy the music. But don’t get me wrong, Tony is one of the best and most underrated singers in the heavy metal genre.

But Tony isn’t where all of the beauty is, instead of it being a ball of beauty being spread out into a thin layer that covers the entirety of the music, the entirety of the music shines with an utterly blinding amount of beauty that is too much for some to handle. Every single fucking centimeter of Sonata Arctica’s music deserves all the attention in the world, but it’s literally impossible to do all of that in one single review that’s at a somewhat reasonable length. I’m going to get it out that this album is more than enough hard evidence to prove that Tommy Portimo is the best drummer in the power metal genre. Not only does he have the ability to do fast double kicks without making the music too heavy, but he also has strong skills when it comes to dynamics, creativity, and variety. Yes, I know that there are better single guitarists in the power metal world, but the two that play on this record are some of the most emotionally moving musicians I’ve ever heard in heavy metal. The solos that they play are absolutely breathtaking; they do a great job of not drowning anything out, but still shining like a phoenix in the dead of night.

Now, the element of this album that not only completed, but solidified my emotional connection with it is the symphonic sounds created by the keyboards. The music is beautiful enough without all of the keyboards on top, but with the addition of what I think is the most beautiful and emotional keyboard symphonics I’ve ever heard in metal, this album is one of the best records known to mankind.

When I said that the music has tons of variety, think of Opeth and how they have long songs that have several parts/movements that have a lot of contrast. When you listen to Deathaura, there are more than five different “parts” to the song that display excessive creativity, knowledge, and mood changes. When you listen to the album, after experiencing every single mood you can imagine, the album leaves you with a feeling of overwhelming beauty-induced joy. Now that I’ve made a huge confession on my true opinion of this album, it’s time that I concluded my review with a perfect score and move on with my evening in order to avoid going on and on about this album. Because you won’t know the true beauty of this album unless you sit down and experience its power yourself. 

Guttural Engorgement - The Slow Decay of Infested Flesh

Guttural Engorgement is one of the many bands that I discovered on Amputated Vein Records’ website (some of those bands I’ve fallen in love with). I saw Guttural Engorgement advertised as “progressive slam death”. Well, I like slamming brutality, so it can’t be too bad, but how the hell can it be progressive?? Well, after a few months of listening to this album, there isn’t anything progressive about them that I can hear. But if you have proof that they are or want to point anything out that I missed in their music that can be considered progressive, feel free to drop a comment below letting me know! Ok, this album is kind of hard for me to listen to because I like grindcore, and I like really slow brutal death slams, but I’m not a huge fan of them being combined (just like what Awaiting the Autopsy does).

If you’re not a DIEHARD fan of grindcore, SLAMMING brutal death, goregrind/pornogrind, or death grind, there’s no reason for you to read this review because this album isn’t for you (unless you just feel like reading reviews for some reason). When you ask around, even plenty of grindcore fans don’t consider this record to be amazing. But of course, people usually don’t give much publicity to bands that aren’t amazing. I certainly have heard worse than Guttural Engorgement, but seriously, these guys kind of screwed up badly.

Here’s where the grindcore seeps in; almost all of the songs are under two minutes in length. As well as that, the legendary grindcore shriek that only sounds good in grindcore and, if used in any other kind of record, can fucking BUTCHER the music in a split second. This is exactly what Awaiting the Autopsy did (is there an echo in here?), except their music is much better than Guttural Engorgement’s. Since Guttural Engorgement doesn’t have a female vocalist like Awaiting the Autopsy, the shrieks are delivered at a lower pitch. But seriously, they kind of ruin the moment. The reason why the shrieks ruin the moment is because EVERYTHING, and I mean EVERYTHING in this album is so fucking DEEP and tuned so LOW. The guitars and bass are SLOW and DEEP, the inhaled growls are deeper than anything I’ve even heard in my life. You have all that, and then “BLUAAAAHHHH!!!!! BLUAH BLEAH BLEAHHHH!!!!!!” It just doesn’t sound cool at all, man!!

But the vocalist isn’t the bad member of the band, his growls fit the music perfectly; it’s the drummer and the guitarists I have a problem with. The drummer just sucks in general. I swear he has never been able to keep a steady beat in his life. His ability to keep time SUCKS, being forced to play extremely slow tempos only makes it harder (because it’s harder to keep time when playing slow because you keep unconsciously speeding up, which is why the good musicians have the ability to control that). He doesn’t know how to play a blast beat, his double kicking sounds completely uneven when he attempts to play fast, and he plays the EXACT same drum pattern in every single REALLY slow breakdown. Ok, now I’m getting to the point where the vocalist’s deep growls are getting really bland and increasingly annoying (just thought I’d throw that in there).

The faults of the drummer cause the guitarists to sound like elephant diarrhea. But the guitarists and bassist really aren’t that bad and do a great job of keeping the music going despite the anchor known as the drummer. The bassist plays a number of complex bass lines to keep each song at least somewhat unique. Although they don’t sound any different if you don’t have an ear for bass tones like I do (mainly because I’m a bassist myself). Oh, by the way, I scored this album 6/20 for completely failing to impress me, but not making me regurgitate my burger because it’s not a total disaster and I’ve heard a plethora of worse bands. I would only recommend this to hardcore goregrind/pornogrind, grindcore, and brutal death fans.  

Whitechapel - Whitechapel

Whitechapel doesn’t even need an introduction. They are by far one of the biggest, best, and most brutal deathcore bands in existence. Having released their debut album in the middle of the legendary deathcore explosion of 2007, I’ve been well-aware of Whitechapel’s music since the fucking beginning. Now, with three monstrously brutal albums under their belt, it’s time for Whitechapel to take another step up and create something with a more mature and unique sound than anything they’ve ever thought of creating. I read an interview that reminded me so much of Decrepit Birth when Whitechapel vocalist Phil Bozeman stated that in their first album, they were attempting to create the most brutal music ever. And to be honest, they did a pretty good job of it! But since then, their intentions have drifted away from brutality and more towards quality, but brutality still accurately defines all of Whitechapel’s albums (which isn’t a bad thing).

I think that A New Era of Corruption was Whitechapel’s first experimental and “progressive” record (although I would consider it more experimental than anything else. The outcome was fantastic and the band decided to keep moving in that direction. The new sound that this record puts out is as experimental as A New Era of Corruption, but much less abstract and obviously experimental. This is because a lot of the fusing and progressions being made are the combining of death metal and deathcore (or using more “death” than “core”).

On top of that, guitar solos are being implemented throughout the record; and they sound fucking awesome. I never really thought it would sound good, but really noisy shredding sounds really cool with the angry sound of Whitechapel’s music. Also, there’s a lot more use of melodic and minimally-distorted guitars in the background. Obviously, Whitechapel loved the sound of the really rough and gritty industrial/EBM effects in A New Era of Corruption because they use them in this album. But don’t worry, they don’t overuse it in any way. So along with all that and many other countless new progressions, the musicians themselves have taken some time to improve their skills, especially Phil Bozeman.

Phil’s ability to growl FAST has exploded, listen to the song (Cult)turalist and hear how technical and fast he ends up going and how fucking AMAZING he sounds! Along with that, the range of different pitches he uses has expanded beyond verbal description. His growls have gotten much deeper, and his screams are much more developed and clean (as opposed to the somewhat shitty sounding ones in This is Exile). Phil has also gotten into the habit of using mid-range vocals (somewhat similar to Despised Icon) more than anything else. This isn’t a TOTAL loss because they sound great, but I would like to hear more guttural “Whitechapel growls” on the next record. The drumming is bombarding and technical as always, the guitars are a thousand times better, and the bassist…don’t get me started on him.

To sum it all up: this album is ridiculous. Those of you that have heard it already know exactly what I mean. This album has taken an unrelenting amount of brutality, insanity, and creativity, and mixed it all together to create Whitechapel’s fourth record that gets my score of 18/20, tying with the score of my favorite Whitechapel album, This is Exile. I cannot stress this enough: I would recommend this goddamn album to EVERYONE and ANYONE, especially fans of insane amounts of brutality. 

If you're like me and are disappointed in not being able to enjoy the awesome Whitechapel logo on the new album cover, I took the cover and added in the band logo for all of you: http://kangasphotoshop.weebly.com/uploads/6/9/1/8/6918701/3523215_orig.jpg 

Abominable Putridity - The Anomalies of Artificial Origin

Abominable Putridity was the band that proved to me that some of the best underground brutal death bands come from Russia. I’m not saying that THE BEST come from Russia, I’m saying that most of the Russian brutal death bands are fucking awesome. Not only is there Abominable Putridity, but there’s also Aposepsy, Katalepsy, Aborted Fetus, and Abnormity (for some weird reason a lot of them start with the same letter). As well as brutal death, but Russia has a very strong depressive black metal scene that includes one of my favorite bands ever, Wintercult. But Russian brutality is what I’m here to tell you about, especially in the likes of this particular CD which I bought a month or so ago as well as a shirt (both from the record label, Brutal Bands), The Anomalies of Artificial Origin.

More or less, Abominable Putridity is Russian death metal at its best. Not only have they acclaimed the status and recognition with the community and their fans, but with the industry as well. Through quality in music, great sales (apparently all of the pre-orders for this album sold out almost a week in advance), and a great record label (Brutal Bands), Abominable Putridity’s popularity is more than well-deserved. Ok, now that I’ve given an overview of Abominable Putridity’s status, why the fuck do I love this album so much??

Some people would beg to differ on this point, but I believe that when it comes to the “generic” forms of a genre, that there’s still plenty of room for variation within those walls. For example, in deathcore, all of the generic bands share 80-90% of the same traits. But when you put Suicide Silence, Impending Doom, Emmure, and Suffokate (all generic deathcore bands) side-by-side, you can still pick out a fair amount of differences. Suicide Silence is the heaviest of the group, Impending Doom’s breakdowns have more of a modernized Meshuggah sound, Emmure plays nothing but simple breakdowns, and Suffokate is much slower and doesn’t play any blast beats. Abominable Putridity is a generic brutal death band, but still has plenty of qualities that make them different from the rest.

Although all of the musicians in this band are fantastic, the drummer and the vocalist stand out to me the most. Matti Way, the vocalist, made his claim to fame by being the vocalist for brutal death masters Pathology on Age of Onset and Legacy of the Ancients. But also, he’s one of those vocalists that has made a large number of guest appearances on albums by (just to name a few) Deeds of Flesh, Condemned, Slaughterbox, and Flesh Consumed. And if you haven’t heard his vocals before, take my word for it that he is one of the best slamming brutal death vocalists in the genre and definitely knows his stuff. Also, the drummer is an extremely creative member of the band. The most unique thing about what this guy plays is that he rarely plays blast beats (unless he’s playing his interpretation/version of a blast beat that doesn’t even sound like one). Instead, he does literally everything else a death metal drummer can think of. Showing variety in the drumming is something that too many brutal death albums lack due to most drummers only playing blast beats or a single drum pattern they come up with. He’s not a drummer that CONSTANTLY plays ultra-fast, but that doesn’t mean that he never does, because he can play some fucking BLASTING speeds that mow you down.

The guitars are very well-rounded as far as how much bass and treble goes, but the bass guitar’s volume could use to be much louder. Either that or he’s playing more mid-range and high notes than I’m used to, which wouldn’t surprise me because there are moments where the guitars are taking a really technical climb in pitch and I can hear the bass doing the same thing as well. Aside from that, this band is tighter than the pussy of a toddler, their slamming breakdowns pound you ten feet into the pavement, and the song structure is very organized and none of the songs sound the same. I would give this record 18/20 for being my favorite Russian brutal death record and for blowing my mind apart (almost literally) with its musical quality and bombarding brutality. 

I the Breather - Truth and Purpose

I’m going to be honest: as a whole, I’m not a big fan of the metalcore genre, but there are several amazing metalcore bands. Just to list off a few of my favorite metalcore bands, there’s Miss May I, Threat Signal, Mnmeic, Killswitch Engage, Structures, Oh, Sleeper, Eyes Set to Kill, and Atreyu. Although there are others I enjoy listening too (like As I Lay Dying and God Forbid), those are ones that are most worthy of mentioning. I’m not an elitist in any kind of way, but I’m not too keen on the majority of the “generic” metalcore scene. I do like some bands from this area of the genre, but 97% of them seem to be either terrible or purely mediocre. Well, a week ago, I had one of those “oh what the hell” moments and decided to give a few of these generic metalcore bands that I’ve passed up for so long a listen. I’m not going to be considering this a series, but the first one I’ll be reviewing is I the Breather.

It seems that the generic metalcore sound has changed since I last remember. I remember the generic metalcore sound as being not so heavy and somewhat simple chord progressions (if any) like All that Remains, Atreyu, I Killed the Prom Queen, and Haste the Day (all of whom I used to really like…except for I Killed the Prom Queen…I only ever enjoyed one song by them). Now, the generic metalcore sound seems to be MUCH heavier, much more breakdown-based, much more Christian, and much, much simpler. Some people have gone to call these bands “hardcore”, a term that I personally despise. But I’m not here to rant about how the metalcore genre has evolved and transformed, I’m here to talk about one of the newer generic metalcore bands, I the Breather.

I’ve known about them for a while, maybe four months or so. But the thought of checking them out never crossed my mind. Now that I’ve listened to this album dozens of times over the past week, I’ve come to the conclusion that I the Breather is just another metalcore band, but they’re not quite EXACTLY what I expected them to be. Before I get into the majority of the album, which can be summed up in just a few sentences, I want to tell you about my first experience listening to the first track on the album, because I was so surprised that I had to restart the song before it was halfway through to make sure I wasn’t imagining things. The first song, False Prophet, starts off with a very soft keyboard/guitar line that I predicted would be playing in the background for the duration of the track. Then, the vocals kicked in and the extremely low-tuned guitars started chugging away like a bomb went off in my face. In other words, the first 1 ¼ minutes of this song were surprisingly powerful and epic.

I’ve been listening to these bands in anticipation to find the diamond in the rough, and during this song, a smile formed upon my face and I thought I had found the glimmering gem. After the intro “breakdown” I was waiting for it to be more than just breakdowns, and it turns out that this isn’t one of those “breakdown after breakdown” kind of bands. But after False Prophet ends, things start taking a not-so-good direction. First of all, the vocals aren’t really that good. The songs eventually start to drag on and become VERY repetitive and bland, which is easy to do with an epic sound like the one False Prophet brings. The drummer seems to be really unfocused on a lot of the tracks, which leads to confusion on whether the band is out of time or the drummer is falling behind. Once I finished the record, I was extremely disappointed at how False Prophet raised the bar so high and have none of the songs even come close to touching the bar with their fingertips.

The majority of these generic metalcore bands seem to worship and idolize August Burns Red (which is respectable because they are pretty damn amazing). Here’s the problem that I have with all these bands’ obsession with ABR: not only do they worship and fight to be one of the openers on the band’s next tour, but they create an EXREMELY similar (but not nearly as good and not nearly as technical) sound to ABR, which has led to what the world knows as the modern metalcore blueprint. That’s right people, August Burns Red might not be as big, but they’ve definitely become more influential than All that Remains, Killswitch Engage, Sonic Syndicate, As I Lay Dying, and (dare I say) Bullet for my Valentine. And I the Breather is nothing more than another brick in the wall of the ABR-influenced generic metalcore scene.

For those of you diehard metalcore fans that aren’t TOO picky but know a terrible band when they hear it, this album should be fairly easy to enjoy. I would give this album 9/20 for being nowhere near being the worst metalcore album ever, but nowhere near being something I would recommend and show to any of my friends. If you’re SUPER curious about what False Prophet sounds like, I think it’s a pretty fucking epic song and would at most recommend that one song.  

Upcoming Reviews

Here are bands I plan to review this weekend and next week:

I the Breather (metalcore)
Dying Fetus (death grind)
Abominable Putridity (brutal death)
Whitechapel (deathcore)
Putridity (brutal death)
Guttural Engorgement (brutal death)
Sinister (death metal)
Lord Belial (black metal)