Transcend
Various Artists
Eulogy / Alveran
Grrrrr! A whole lot of “chugga chugga”s and “Jud Jud, Yarrrrrr”s on this here compilation from the folks at Eulogy and Alveran. Let’s do it this way:
A Death For Every Sin, “Born To Lose” – Boring chugga chugga stuff with some tough guy trying to scare me.
Arma Angelus, “We Are the Pale Horse” – Pretty good melodic metalcore, with a convincing lead singer… that is, until they do a rapcore break down in the middle of the song. Way to ruin a decent song, jerks!
Christiansen, “The Reformation Takes Hold” – I actually stuck forks on either end of this log of corn, buttered it up, and bit down; sadly, I gagged on the high level of drama and overtly prototypical emo-ness of this track, and vomited tears. Go figure.
Copykill, “Shadow” – Poor sound quality, cool guitars, and terribly done vocals for this metal rocker.
Dashboard Confessional, “Ender Will Save Us All” – Lots of pomade and tattoos in this one; I was actually unable to listen past the first 30 seconds, mainly because I was so inspired that I ran to my journal and began pouring out my heart.
Downpour, “Silent Truths and Poisons” – Yes! This is the bomb-diggity! Huge drums, fast and evil Slayer-esque guitars with enormous riffs, time changes like Botch, and a frantic vocalist! This is absolutely wonderful and well worth the price of the comp, just for this track!
Drift, “Turn the Curse” – If Drift had followed Dashboard Confessional on the comp, I might have liked this better; however, Drift follows Downpour, which only makes Drift’s pseudo-evil metal rants appear more transparent.
Evergreen Terrace, “Sweet Nothings Gone Forever” – Sounds like Assuck crossed with Helmet and recent Red Hot Chili Peppers, which sounds interesting, in theory; but this song sucks, so what do I know?
Keepsake, “The Beginning of the End of Sound” – So many people swear by these guys, but the “chugga chugga choo choo” here is stale, boring, and not interesting, at all. For Pete’s sake, turn up the bass guitarist, and don’t use such a tight snare drum sound! Peee-eew!
Liar, “Frozen Heart” – Oh, baby! Hot stuff here! Gripping guitar riffs, sloppy yet powerful drumming, and enough darkness to cover the entirety of the world; very death, very metal, very aggressive, and very good!
Morning Again, “Turning Over” – Wake me up when these guys get done beating people up, “representin’,” wearing their hoodies, and copping moves from the Hatebreed school of hardcore. ZZZZZZ…
One Nation Under, “Everything To Lose” – Terrible sound quality, but the dark nature and high evil quotient make up for that. This is fast death/thrash metal, with a very exasperated and bloodied throat singer. Take a lesson from these guys, up and coming evil doers.
Santa Sangre, “Bury Your Dead” – This is how chugga chugga metal stuff should be done. There’s enough low end here to rattle the bowels of any Southern Lord fan, and the song is short enough that it doesn’t have time to get stale.
Shattered Realm, “The World is Mine” – This has to be a practical joke… Where’s the camera?
This Day Forward, “Kairos” – Pretty cool angular emo/math/melodic hardcore stuff. There’s a guitar lick in this song that sounds like This Day Forward might have raided Spanakorzo’s classic, “Drama,” for inspiration. P.S. This song is defiled about 1:30 by some corny 311 rap thing. Yuck. It was really good before that!
Unearth, “Endless” – Pretty forgettable metalcore with a tough guy singing… Snore…
Unsung Zeros, “Broadcast” – Awesome! This sounds like what Braid could have done, if they hadn’t broken up, and if they had invited members of Ultimate Fakebook to join the band. Cool, noodly guitars with weird timings and stuff. The lead singer sounds familiar, but I can’t place it. Emo/nerd-core that’s pretty solid!
Until the End, “Death Disguised as Salvation” – Song title’s translation = Crappy hardcore disguised as something tolerable.
Walls Of Jericho, “A Day and a Thousand Years” – I’ll just say one thing about this ridiculously incredible band that everyone reading this already knows: The lead singer from Walls Of Jericho has bigger balls than the majority of crappy metalcore singers on this comp.
Pretty solid compilation, if it can be had cheaply.
Eulogy Recordings: http://www.eulogyrecordings.com/
