Review Summary: WARNING: Only for the most curious fans of the band
mewithoutYou's self-released 2000 EP is, frankly, disgusting. The work resembles a poor man's Today is the Day. This style of music is all too familiar with squeaky and airy screams, excessively crunchy guitars, cocaine-laden drums, and a production value that can only be described as "crusty". Now, I’m not necessarily saying the genres of noisecore and crustpunk are bad. These guys just represent some sort of… “combination” of these genres that ends up being outright awful. Overall the value of the record feels like something pushed by naïve teenagers, something that tries way too hard to shock an imagined audience, and is something that, to any band similar to MWY, is an embarrassment. This EP represents a chapter of MWY's career that was quickly swept under the rug and forgotten about, and for good reason.
The EP immediately descends into a chaotic mess, decorated by overly simplistic drums, whiny and very obnoxious screams, and excessive chugging that badgers the ears quite annoyingly. A solid moment or two are allotted for what seems to an attempt to, well, I honestly couldn’t tell you. Sometimes, seemingly at random, the chugging and screaming stop and instead comes a handful of higher notes and childish whispers exclaiming cheesy “I love you but now I hate you” shock lines that you’d expect to hear from an early Slipknot or deathcore-era Bring Me The Horizon. There is a complete lack of any sort of direction.
It would be nice if there was some sort of effort to mix up the monotony that didn’t leave the listener confused and jerked around, but every song follows relatively the same formula. Chugging is followed by a quick dropout which is followed by more chugging which is followed by some sort of stupid attempt at, again, shocking the audience, like ridiculous vomiting sounds or a cheesy sample. Clocking in at just a little over 16 minutes, the listener is left unimpressed and annoyed at the fact that these guys couldn’t come up with anything better.
