Review Summary: These guys have potential.
September 22nd’s a small screamo band from Tennessee that I stumbled upon on the Ultimate-Guitar forums, in a thread started by a friend of the band. They uploaded this album to megaupload themselves for free distribution, and the link is provided at the end of the review. All in all, they’re not too original, but they make up for it with some epic music. Its gloomy as hell, but in an airy manner that’s simple to digest, similar to maybe Envy or Scoreoneforsafety, but with elements of metal thrown in here and there.
It’s an entrancing journey into those low places we all get from time to time, and it might just help provide some sanity. There are layers upon layers of guitars and synths; enough building blocks to construct the great pyramids of Giza. The droning chord progressions bring the feeling that this is the beginning something monumental, but they never just drone, they’re not a one trick horse. There are plenty of doomy portions, maybe doomy's not the word, something along the lines of Agalloch, non-chuggy metalcore breaks, even some post-rock… they’re taking things we’ve all heard before and turning it into something fresh and inviting.
The song Solemn’s Harrowing starts with a melancholic clean guitar progression, with a discordant break in the middle of it, meanders into something more epic, and filters back to the discordant break, repeating, into a great breakdown, with very slow chugs, an epic melody, and then the discordant break yet again, and then fades out and into another depressive guitar part. Progressions of the sort are used throughout the album, giving it some sort of character, like you’re trapped in your room for days in the deepest self-pity that keeps snapping into self-loathing, and then you cry. It feels that honest. It’s like a sonic depiction of a depressive funk made beautiful, and the vocals add so much more… ranging from a raspy-voice-cracking shout similar to that of TJ Bonette from As Cities Burn, to hoarse shouts, and even frustrated shrieks like Jacob Bannon of Converge, it’s all there, it’s all bursting from the guys throat.
The only real issue I’ve found with the album as a whole is the drumming. Maybe it’s because the toms seem almost in the background, but the drumming just doesn’t seem as busy as it was meant be in some portions, such as the intro of We Are Our Own Cutlass. But he does do very well to have the drumming drone along in the same depressive dirge.
So if you’re looking for something gloomy, check it out:
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=BLK1YJEN
