Review Summary: This is all that you were programmed to be afraid of.
Since the release of their self-titled EP back in 2013, Vein has been gaining traction at a staggering rate. The Boston quintet has received an abundance of praise from all corners of the hardcore and metal community— and rightfully so. The band’s unique fusion of nu-metal and chaotic hardcore (a la Rorschach, Botch, etc.) coupled with its frantic live performances have made Vein one of the most consistently engaging acts in recent memory.
Errorzone sees the band’s seemingly unstoppable upward trajectory culminating into a triumphant full-length debut.
While
Errorzone is an album deeply rooted in nostalgia, Vein manages to carve out their own remarkable aesthetic. Vocalist Anthony Didio’s shrill howls and melodramatic crooning sound apocalyptic over the band’s dystopian backdrop. Unpredictability and terror reign supreme on ragers like the revamped “Old Data in a Dead Machine” and “Demise Automation.” Industrial drum loops and menacing mechanical guitars tear through the album’s lean run-time (the opening riff in “End Eternal” is an auditory glitch in
The Matrix).
Errorzone is as killer as first albums come, but it’s not without its growing pains; specifically, the band’s haphazard use of melody. On songs like “Old Data in a Dead Machine” and the title track, it is incorporated beautifully. The former features eerie clean vocals that create an uneasy build-up to a monstrous breakdown, while “Errorzone”’s epic finale layers distorted singing over soaring guitars and faint piano. It is on cuts like these that Vein flexes their muscles as songwriters and masterfully incorporate melody to make them dynamic and powerful.
Unfortunately, the band fumbles with this at certain points. The melodious punk break of “Untitled” between bruisers “Doomtech” and “End Eternal” is a welcome change-up in the album’s onslaught of bombastic nu-metal-industrial riffage, but it sounds like it was shaved off another song for the sake of having an interlude.
Despite a few minor pitfalls, Vein’s first full-length effort is a triumphant debut that sets the standard for all hardcore’s other up and comers. Time will tell if they are the genre’s anointed saviors as so many have declared, but as far as first albums go
Errorzone stands tall alongside greats like
American Nervoso.
