Take a rock band, give it industrial influences, a good vocalist, and a great musical blend, and what do you have? Most modern rock bands have begun to look back at the immense success of classic rock and have starting tapping into those roots. This creates a bit of a hard time in finding a band that’s original, but Hourcast succeeds at this with flying colors.
State of Disgrace is the debut album by Hourcast, which consists of Patrick McBride on Vocals, Dave Henriquez on guitar and background vocals, Dave Sullivan on Bass, and Jerry Clews on Drums.
Nothing about the band particularly stands out. You aren’t going to listen to this CD and say “They have a really good Bassist/drummer/guitarist” but this doesn’t detract from the musical quality of the album. The music has a great blend, and McBride is one of the better vocalists I’ve heard in the rock scene in a while.
The recording quality is far beyond most bands debut albums that aren’t immediately immersed into the mainstream. I’ve heard plenty of debut albums that have less than pleasurable music quality, such as Slipknot’s “Mate. Feed. Kill. Repeat.” Or Chevelle’s “Point #1.” But it makes me happy to say that the musical quality is excellently recorded, mixed, and mastered.
Perhaps the most impressive thing about this band is it’s vocalist. Many rock vocalists will not go outside of their “comfort octave” or the revert to a style of singing which primarily consists of screaming and growling, and more often than not it sounds like somebody vomiting into the microphone. But McBride constantly shifts between Bass and Tenor pitched vocals throughout the entire album.
Over all the only problem the album has is that it’s mildly forgettable. After listening to the CD there isn’t a song that will get stuck in your head, after the first couple of times hearing the album, I could even remember the tune to half the songs, but this can be taken as both a good and bad thing, the good side of this is that it shows that the band doesn’t market it’s album based on catchiness, the bad is that you might look at the CD weeks after listening to it and think “I don’t remember much off of this CD, but I know I listened to it, so it must not be that good.” But the album is great, and any fan of modern rock music should be quite happy when they pick it up.
