Review Summary: Lock your doors and hide your daughters.
Etienne Sin made his mark on the world of “independent post-hardcore” music with the release of 2010’s
The Art of Stealing Hearts. And while that mark resembled something you might find in an old pair of boxers, he’s still quite the trooper for actually wanting to continue making music. The general response to his songs has been overwhelmingly negative, aside from the twelve year old girls who worship him through membership in his “Sinner’s Circle.” Undaunted, Etienne has been releasing singles over the past year and a half through his channel on YouTube and on his website (the latter of which is as patronizing as it gets.) Well, the time came for him to group them all together and make
Behold The Renaissance available for download. If it was up for debate before, it’s certainly official now: Etienne Sin is the worst artist in post-hardcore.
Before we continue any further with this, I just want to point out that he’s jumped on the delightful trend of using electronics in post-hardcore music. Take your time cleaning up any excess vomit you may have spewed all over your monitor so we can move forward. I’m not really one to make baseless accusations, but it looks like the cover was taken right off of another website (notice the watermark in the bottom right corner.) Right off the bat, it’s clear that Etienne hasn’t learned a damn thing about his last abhorrent album. Some of the whines on this compilation were strong enough to make me recoil in horror, and I’ve yet to make that face go away. While the production has improved to the point where my ears no longer want to jump off the sides of my head and into the nearest blender, covering a turd in ice cream sprinkles (James Rolfe ™) isn’t going to fool anyone with even the smallest amount of brain activity.
One song many people will recognize is “Carved By Ships, Built For Hearts”, as it was the first real exposure Etienne received on the Internet. I have no idea how he manages to sound like a seagull being sodomized, but it’s there and it’s intriguing. One listen of this song will tell you everything you need to know about why his music is so hated. The structure is all over the place, the video is quite possibly the most unintentionally hilarious music video ever made, the vocals are ridiculously cheesy, the lyrics (“Take take me, into your heart girl. Instant freeze, is this really happening to me?”) are juvenile and nonsensical and I can’t go five seconds without wanting to pummel my monitor into dust. The breakdowns are still generic, used in completely inappropriate places and follow the same stupid giggles and chants of “GO!” as they always have.
Behold The Renaissance brings absolutely nothing new to the table in terms of innovation. It’s a self-indulgent, god-awful mess that manages to progress absolutely nowhere from its predecessor. I honestly feel sorry for the countless bands that have paid unbelievable sums of money for his production and song-writing abilities. Though I have no idea what most of those bands sounded like before he got behind the wheel, it’s almost certain that they would have been better off without him. Instead, they now sound exactly like the songs on this compilation, and I sincerely pity them for that. Etienne has now set himself up as the prime target for fans of post-hardcore fans around the world. He is certainly doing everything he can to ruin the genre. It’s only a matter of time before the rest of them are put at risk.
