Review Summary: "...both mundane and forgettable in spite of the obvious talent."
I've enjoyed my fair share of metalcore - really, I have.
There's just many aspects of other subgenres that stand out more to my ears, but that doesn't mean that I'm the kind of person that blocks out other aspects that make the music great such as instrumentation, lyrics, and overall creativity.
Creatures is the debut album by Motionless in White,
it has various electronic and gothic musical elements strewn throughout the composition and also has fairly uninspired album art, but y'know - don't judge a book by its cover and all that!
Let's at least hope that their music is better than the outfits that the band themselves wear.
Now, let's get one thing straight; this project is littered with growling and I'm not mad at that, I personally thought it was done quite well - it has a good heavy and sinister sound to it.
And that's definitely where the vocals are at their best in my opinion, the only other vocal style the album really provides us are these clear, sometimes grueling, nasally, juvenile-sounding cadences that I know can come off as generic or uninviting to a lot of people, and it's undoubtedly not what I look for when I want to listen to what seems to start off with such hard-sounding and badass vibes.
In my opinion it certainly does not help with the other features that this album has, since it's pretty much on every track you're not going to have much to come back for if those types of vocals aren't really your cup of tea.
Let's take the lyrics for example; for the most part I would not write home about them - I can't be the only person hearing some damn emo-like characteristics throughout this, that's the part where the vocals don't really help since they'll go from referencing creepy concepts and details that actually go really well with the whole freakish theme in songs like "We Only Come Out at Night", "London in Terror", "Abigail", and "Undead Ahead"... but then they'll completely change their focus to something like this;
"Put your teeth to the curb, 'cause right now I'm gonna stomp your f-cking face in.
I hope you drown in all the c-m you f-cking swallow, to get yourself to the top."
Or this;
"I bleed myself dry, I bleed myself dry, I bleed myself dry, and nothing I could ever write would help you understand this life."
Or even this;
"I am human and I need to be loved just like everybody else does...
Get f-cking over me
Move!
My f-cking pain is my paycheck
Get f-cking over me!"
To me it just seems like they should stick to concepts because adding nonsense like that in just seems to give it a lack of direction.
Moving back to the good stuff; as the growls are the best part of the vocals in my opinion the synthesizer work is the best part of the production, it's just nice and smooth - almost like you can drown in it. The riffs and hard hitting and the drums are pretty fierce on every track, I'm still not sure if it's enough to make the project stand out to me as a whole to me though.
This composition can come off as both mundane and forgettable in spite of the obvious talent that this band has, while the nice take on certain concepts and badass headbanging worthy moments are great and show off their adept instrument playing and potential; I just don't think that this band's particular debut outing is for everyone, but who am I to critique...I'm just a human and I need to be loved like everybody else does.
Favourites:
The synthesizers, most riffs and drums, aspects of "Immaculate Misconception", "We Only Come Out at Night", "London in Terror", "Abigail", "Creatures", and "Undead Ahead", the creepy and eerie vibes, the growls
Least Favourites:
Most of the lyrics, the emo-like similarities, the singing nasally vocals, lack of direction, "Cobwebs", ".Com Pt. II", "Count Choculitis", "City Lights", "Puppets (The First Show)", and "Scissorhands (The Last Show)"
AWARDS:
Daddy's Little Girl: Abigail
The Son I Never Wanted: Count Choculitis
