Tough call, I’d say. Although I hear quality musicianship, I also heard trendwatching. The material this band composes is directly taken from the so-called New Wave Of American Heavy Metal with just a tad more thrash metal(core) in it. The only real difference is the fact that there are no clean vocals, thank Satan.

Besides this fact, I hear this band repeating itself a lot. The poeka-drum patterns and melodic riffs are in such abundance on this disc that I get bored quite soon. On the other hand, when a moment of creative aggressiveness comes by I couldn’t be happier. Because this band truly possesses the talent to create some great tracks. But another weak point are the vocals. This guy has a powerful roar, and that’s it. This as well makes the entire story quite boring.

 

And the strangest thing to me is that I like the demo tracks from 2002 way better than the 2005 tracks. Usually when you’re in a band you’re trying to make progress, correct me if I’m wrong. But that doesn’t seem to be the case here. The older tracks pack way more ferociousness, anger and most of all, creativity. Less melody, more power. And it are especially the melodic (old-skool Metallica) parts that make it hard to listen to. Since there are no clean vocals they usually remain instrumental, or accompanied by another metalcore-roar. Boring!

 

Well, the mix is good and the quality is still nice, not considering the monotony. So I guess the average Avenged Sevenfold and/or Trivium fan can work with this.