From a Second Story Window
Not One Word Has Been Omitted
Black market Activities
From a Second Story Window is one of the best known bands on the incredible Black Market Activities roster. They play metal-core, with a lot more metal than core. They do a lot of weird guitar stuff that makes them a bit reminiscent of latter day Coalesce, Converge and the like. There’s definitely something here that makes these guys both refreshing and exciting.
The vocalist has the ability to bark, growl, scream and yell with the best of them, and he chooses a very high pitch, scraping scream for the most part. He sounds as if he’s causing injury to his throat as he sings, which just adds to the gnarled feeling of this album. The guitars chugga-chugga-jud-jud along in a fairly predictable fashion, and even though it should seem stale, given the popularity of metal-core over the years, it doesn’t. The drummer isn’t a show off, yet he’s very good; he can play super fast without sounding funny, and he’s a very hard hitter.
Standout tracks include the highly melodic “I Tried Voodoo Once” and the devastating “How London Got its Fog.” This is only a five-song EP, but it rocks with passion and fury, qualities that have been missing from the majority of so-called “brutal” metal-core releases of late.
Black Market Activities: http://www.blackmarketactivities.com
