Review Summary: The Guillotine is a Goner
Early Graves after 2 tour runs for their last album We: The Guillotine the band found themselves hitting some very harsh times . As We: The Guillotine did not sell all that well, and Metal Blade didn't seem to offer much help with the aforementioned tours. The band found created themselves a unique sound on the first that fixed on a blend of crust punk, thrash, grind, death, and occasionally experimental. Led by
Today is the Day frontman Steve Austin the band forged and was received well by fans of the former band name
Apiary and critics alike. However the band themselves admitted that some parts on the record were forced, mostly being towards the instrumentals. On Goner the band has found a new producer more accepting of their sound and more willing to go towards the sound they've been wanting. But...is this all for the better?
The band's sound on this album has a lot less variety and more towards “thrasy crust punk” while this sound is full of anger and tons of energy that we saw on We: The Guillotine it just seems to be more of a simplification act that doesn't sound nearly as good or original. Indeed most (if not all) of the doom, grind, and experimental/progressive moments of the first album are goners (get it?). However the band seemed to have realized that without these extra influences that most of their songs will be boring, so they shorted things up a considerable bit. Now with all of these changes, “is Early Graves still worth a listen?” I'd say yes, there is a considerable amount of raw energy, and gritty as hell production to go along with it (100% analog) that gives it a nice “garage feel” to the sound.
From the opener the title track seems to hit as hard as Ballistics did on the last album and helps keep the blood going. But from the usual “*** religion” chants of the cleverly titled ”Faith is ***” to the
Minor Threat cover in “Old Bones”. Everything that made this band oringinal seemed to be tossed out the window...wait...”May Day” and “Wraiths” seem to bring in some doom metal influences? Yes these songs do well to make this album not too much of a one hat trick, but sadly enough the rest of the album is just that.
If you've come for pissed off crust punk, you've come to the right place as no other band seems to show anger like Goner has, however if you want a memorable metal/crust record this has been done better. But that wasn't the goal of the album as Makh simply put it
"I can't say that this will be the heaviest record you've ever heard or the best recording or the most musically precise, but I can say that, at least, it's ***ing honest.". Simply put, this isn't the best record you'll find it'll get the job done, but there is much better heavier and more musically precise records out there.
