Review Summary: Not a bad effort for a style of music that leaves most people flaccid.
Saying that the new wave of metal is crap is similar to stating that the grass is green. Bands like
Black Veil Brides are unanimously and automatically declared horrible, from the sheer amount of hatred that is aimed at them.
Yashin’s Put Your Hands Where I Can See Them looks like the typical album that teenagers that can’t get hard would listen to. What, with its two singers (one for screaming, the other designated from the commonly heard clean vocals) it could become notoriously well-known for its faginess. But behind the metalcore exterior is something that a lot of parallel bands lack; talent. Hell, with fine-tuning on many basic fields,
Yashin could even become remotely respected within the wider community. As far as debut albums go, this sure isn’t a bad effort.
The songs are fast, the drums are urgent and the singing is far from ordinary. The musicianship displayed throughout this album shows that these guys have a reasonable amount of talent. Like most new metal bands, the guitar mainly consists of power chords fused with mini-breakdowns scattered during nearly every song off
Put Your Hands Where You Can See Them. The guitar tone is weak, grating, and on most occasions unsupported by the bass, and parts of this album really lack a punch. However, palm mutes and riffs that could be found on any traditional metal track aren’t absent from this album, and when
Yashin do perform these phrases, the bass plays along very nicely. “Down, But Homeward Bound,” exemplifies this ability to sound like two bands in one song; good and bad. “Get Loose!,” is much like a typical metalcore song that you might discover on an
Escape the Fate record. The riffs are played on the higher strings of the guitar, which really dilutes the already feeble guitar tone. Simple chords transit with three note melodies to create an extremely mediocre finish. Solos are a rarity on this album, however, many guitar lovers could get their fill of soloing within the song “Hope,” where arpeggio based picking occurs at its finest.
In all honesty, this album would be nothing but a steaming pile of cow turd if it wasn’t for the two singer’s ability to save a dying record. The harsh growls of the screaming vocalist run smoothly with the rest of the band and are what sets apart
Yashin from most other generic bands; to an extent anywho. His vocals are best represented on the song “Remember Me,” where he screams for the majority of the track. The clean singer throws a very melodic, pleasant voice to the table, and on songs such as “Black Summer,” he really demonstrates his broad vocal range. The lyrics, as you’d expect, seem to be directed towards depressed teenagers who just want to hear about how people got betrayed by their best friends, or how their heart was broken by their first true love.
One area that
Yashin really exceeds expectations is in the catchiness of the choruses played throughout
Put Your Hands Where I Can See Them. Where many bands reach a huge red sign that says ‘Halt,’
Yashin put their foot on the accelerator and create shiny choruses layered with clean, backing and screaming vocals. The song “Everytime,” (a Britney Spears cover with a twist) displays the devastating ability to lay down these refrains and leave the listener frustrated at their inability to shake the song from their head.
Unlike many similar bands,
Yashin doesn’t feel the necessity to make 5 radio-friendly songs a record, which is a tremendous accomplishment given the popularity of this supposedly ‘ingenious’ idea. With the possible exception of “Stand Up,”
Put Your Hands Where I Can See Them is raw, reasonably emotive and brimming with explosions of brilliance.
Releasing a decent album in a very limited style of music is no mean feat, and
Yashin certainly give it their best shot. Generic guitar-work and an inconsistency of it all clicking together are the main critiques to be gathered from this album; however, it is chock full of positives. Definitely a competitive attempt,
Yashin is a band to watch.
3.1/5
Recommended Tracks
Everytime
Down, But Homeward Bound
Intro(Awake While I’m Asleep)
