Uzumaki
User

Soundoffs 24
Album Ratings 5190
Objectivity 74%

Last Active 08-19-22 8:00 pm
Joined 11-13-18

Review Comments 4,472

 Lists
01.18.24 It Came From The Bowels of Bandcamp…08.30.22 Death's Final Revenge
02.14.22 -Core List 18: I'm Tired, Boss...02.05.22 2022 Death Metal Compendium
02.05.22 -Core List 17: This'll Be The Death Of 01.31.22 -Core List 16: Once More, With Feeling
01.20.22 A Coda (Postponed)01.19.22 Core Homework #14: I Think I May Have A
01.17.22 Insert Witty Title Here. Core Explorati01.15.22 The Number 12 Sounds Kinda Like This...
01.12.22 ... They Pull You Back Into Their Core.01.10.22 Eleventh We're Reaching Saturation...
01.02.22 2021 Mutant Ninja Turtles: Secret of th ♦12.28.21 Just When You Thought You Were Safe...
11.15.21 3 Years On Here…05.02.21 Son of Death: Back From the Dead and Hu
12.29.20 Uzu’s Tops of 2020 ♦12.25.20 Uzu’s Honorable Mentions of 2020
More »

Anti-core?!? The Worst of the Worst

As many of you know, I recently completed an 18 month odyssey through the bowels of the hardcore, metalcore, post-hardcore and deathcore, with small asides in (semi) related genres; 7 lists, 600+ albums/EP's of (mostly) good shit, and some of middling quality. Now, I want recommendations for what you've found to be the worst representations of these aforementioned genres, if only to further solidify my appreciation for what I did enjoy; so plant both feet, square your shoulders and give me your best fucking shot(s). ... Like the 8th homework list, as long as you rec stuff, I will check it out, just on my own time; I'm not gonna focus and push myself like I did with the last 7, so don't worry/feel bad if you don't see progress on this right away.
1brokeNCYDE
I'm Not a Fan, but the Kids Like It!
2Design the Skyline
Nevaeh
3Chunk! No, Captain Chunk!
Something for Nothing
4Attila
Fallacy
5Waking the Cadaver
Perverse Recollections of a Necromangler
6Icarus the Owl
Icarus the Owl
7The Fall of Troy
In the Unlikely Event
8Emmure
Felony
9The Devil Wears Prada
Dear Love: A Beautiful Discord
10Abandon All Ships
Geeving

“We don’t give a fuck, we just came to party.”
Yaaaaaaawwwwwwnnnnnn…
Nothing really interesting here to set it apart from the tidal wave of similar bands during their time, just another post-hardcore band with liberal electronic influences. Yippee. That they were signed to Rise Records should tell you everything you need to know about how this album is; only interesting thing that caught my ear was the song “Family Goretrait”, which featured the vocalist from Protest the Hero on it - that was kinda fun. Everything else? Pass.


2.4/5
11Dead by April
Incomparable
12Okilly Dokilly
Howdilly Doodilly
13These Hearts
Forever Ended Yesterday
14Hello Kitty Suicide Club
^_^
15Blood on the Dance Floor
Anthem of the Outcast
16Etienne Sin
The Art of Stealing Hearts

Wow, this was shit. Asinine lyricism, bad vocals and almost childish (re: simplistic) musicianship all made for this to be cringingly stupid, unappreciated and unwelcome to my ears. Hats off to those who listened to this and grew positively from this. You're the real heroes who emerged from this debacle.
The less said about this, the better. Jeez.

0.8/5
17BryanStars
Follow Your Dreams
18I Prevail
Trauma
19ChugChugWob
Redemption
20Miss May I
Rise of the Lion
21Death of a Salesman
The Art Of Misdirection
22Asking Alexandria
The Irony of Your Perfection
23For Today
Fight the Silence

You know, I’ve gotta give credit where credits is due in the fact that much like Ludicia, For Today promoted and supported a singular message in their music that was unlike 90-95% of their peers and contemporaries at the time and stuck by it without withering in the face of dissenting opinions, but the buck stops there because upon relistening to this album there was nothing here that grabbed my attention at all; sounding like “wash/rinse/repeat” on almost every single track, this was B O R I N G. Vocals and instrumentals blended together into a monotonous mash, no exciting tonal adjustments and the flow was the musical equivalent of a lazy river, just straight up boring. At least “Break the Cycle” and “Pariah” are still lowkey bops, otherwise I would’ve fallen asleep….


2.3/5
24Unleashing My Demons
Tran​(ce​)​scen(e​)dance
25Thallahu Akbar
DJihad EP
26Suicide Silence
Suicide Silence
27Sleeping With Sirens
Feel
28Aiden
Knives

Poor man’s MCR, and it fucking shows. Dull, derivative and guilty of the greatest sin in music: it’s boring. The vocals lack charisma or passion, the instrumentals are serviceable but never really rise above any given moment, tone is tolerable and the flow is monotonous, leading to an unengaging whole. Boring as fuck and totally unnecessary to those wishing to peruse the -core galaxies. Skip this.


2.1/5
29Falling in Reverse
Fashionably Late
30Escape the Fate
Escape the Fate
31The Bunny The Bear
The Stomach for It
32The Paramedic
Smoke & Mirrors
33Abandon All Ships
Infamous

I mentally groaned when I heard the hip hop feature on the second track, a casualty of a band trying to maintain relevance in an over saturated scene. While I will defend the usage of rose-colored glasses for some releases in my past, there’s other albums like this one where I scratch my head and wonder how I enjoyed something like this in the first place. More of the “same ‘ol, same ‘ol” here, not necessarily building off the foundation of their first album but adding on an extension; creatively stagnating across 30 minutes, this was boring with a capital B.


2.3/5
34It Lives, It Breathes
We Come In Numbers
35Vampires Everywhere
Hellbound And Heartless
36Miss May I
Monument
37For Today
Breaker
38Stick To Your Guns
The Hope Division
39The Plot In You
Happiness In Self Destruction
40We Came As Romans
To Plant a Seed
41Issues
Headspace
42Issues
Beautiful Oblivion
43The Devil Wears Prada
Dead Throne
44For the Fallen Dreams
Changes
45I Am War
Outlive You All
46Chiodos
All's Well That Ends Well
47I Killed The Prom Queen
When Goodbye Means Forever
48The Agonist
Five
49I Set My Friends On Fire
You Can't Spell Slaughter Without Laughter
50The Red Jumpsuit Apparatus
Don't You Fake It
51As the World Fades
As the World Fades
52King 810
Memoirs of a Murderer
53Dot Dot Curve
Til the Wheels Fall Off
54Volumes
Different Animals
55King Conquer
1776
56wecamewithbrokenteeth
We're Packing Are You?
57Black Tongue
Born Hanged
58We Break Hearts! Not Hymens
Suicide Is the Most Sincere Form Of Self Deprecati
59Capture the Crown
‘Til Death
60Strawberry Hospital
Grave Chimera
61Upon a Burning Body
Straight From The Barrio
62I Declare War
Amidst The Bloodshed
63A Stained Glass Romance
It's Not A Party Without Us
64Acrania (UK)
Totalitarian Dystopia

I wanted to fall asleep whilst listening to this, but then that meant I’d have to listen to it again to write the blurb, so I stayed awake. Have you ever hear of “vanilla” deathcore? Nothing here that I haven’t heard before, done more originally or engagingly; very paint-by-numbers, bland, cookie-cutter deathcore at play here. Nothing to single out, nothing to mention, just a hearty heaping serving of nothing but “meh”. I felt like the “c’mon; do something” meme just listening to this, everything just blended together, and I even was paying attention. Geez.


2.5/5
65Betraying the Martyrs
Breathe In Life
66Casino Madrid
Robots

“The world is my dance floor…”
Not nice. Back during the early to mid 2010’s, an offshoot of metalcore called “electronicore” got really popular, with many a band hopping on this trend to ride its popularity; in basic form, electronicore, if done well, can at least be fun and kinda catchy, and if done poorly, you can tell it’s shit immediately. Casino Madrid fall unfortunately into the latter category with this entry, and I only use the term “unfortunately” because minus the electronic elements, the instrumentals are actually not bad; however, due to bland usage of electronic elements, rote vocals performances and fucking cringe lyricism, the band, and by proxy, us, find ourselves in this predicament. Tone is tolerable, but the flow does nothing to distinguish any of the intangibles at all; “Fantasy vs. Reality” is f-u-c-k-i-n-g h-i-l-a-r-i-o-u-s in the most terrible way possible. This was a hearty “yeesh” on the toleration scale, and I won’t miss this entry at all.


1.9/5
67Bury Your Dead
Cover Your Tracks
68Throwdown
Venom & Tears
69Dear Whoever
Sound the Trumpet
70Deez Nuts
Bout It
71Feed Her to the Sharks
Savage Seas
72Four Letter Lie
What A Terrible Thing To Say
73Ludicia
Anchored

No....
Just please, no....
Ludicia was (thankful emphasis on “was”) one of many metalcore bands dotting the scene back in the early 2010’s. What made them stick out for some were their unabashed stand, lyrically and spiritually, for Christianity, and more power to them for standing by their convictions, but for other people, Ludicia stood out for how baaaaaaaad they sounded, and that is definitely evident in this album. Guitar tone mimicked the clean vocalist, in that it sounded whiny and sometimes grating. The vocals, in addition to sounding whiny, also sounded nasal and forced, almost as if he was trying to mimic a hard rock style of singing and was failing miserably; the uncleans were tolerable for the most part but unmemorable, and the flow was.... meh. Decent at best. A tolerable concept of a band, horribly executed. No second chances for these guys.

1.2/5
74In Fear and Faith
Imperial
75I Killed The Prom Queen
Beloved
76Woe, Is Me
Genesi[s]

I wondered how I would fare when revisiting particular albums that happened along early in my journey through metalcore, with this being one of them. I now have an answer: I’ll be perfectly fine. Woe, Is Me’s sophomore effort is inoffensive to the point of being labeled “vanilla”; what I mean by that is there’s nothing, nothing in tone, nothing in style, nothing in production, that can set this album and/or band apart from the hundreds of other bands peddling the same brand of metalcore at the same time Woe, Is Me was around. Very chug-chuggy in the guitar tone and musicianship, slicker than a politician running for re-election in production, overall tone and flow is so one-note this aspect could almost be deemed as a run-on sentence in musical terms and overall terribly forgettable. No tears shed over this.

2.4/5
77LoveHateHero
Just Breathe
78SECRETS
The Ascent
79Texas in July
Bloodwork
80Twitching Tongues
Disharmony
81I Shot The Duck Hunt Dog
For Derek
82Atreyu
Visions
83Snow White's Poison Bite
The Story Of Kristy Killings
84Destroy The Runner
Saints
85Inked in Blood
Lay Waste the Poets
86Inhale Exhale
The Lost, the Sick, the Sacred
87The Autumn Offering
Requiem
88Twinspan
Anthems of Your Scene Phase
89Demise Of Eros
Neither Storm nor Quake nor Fire
90Beware The Neverending
The Next Level
91Vanna
Curses
92Drop Dead, Gorgeous
In Vogue
93Endwell
Homeland Insecurity
94Whisteria Cottage
Heathen
95Twelve Gauge Valentine
Shock Value
96xAFBx
My Life, Your End
97Every Bridge Burned
Aun Aprendo
98The Showdown
Back Breaker
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