Reviewer

[Daniel Wse Whitfield]

sorry if this is in the wrong section. I'm looking for a confident person to do a review of my bands new single. If you do that sort of thing and fancy it, sling me a private message. I would also be interested in hearing any peoples opinions on it, however brutal. please post any opinions below. *Video is in my signature*

[Iceni]

You've got more interesting stuff going on here than most metalcore/melodeath bands, especially in the opening riff which I loved. That said, breakdowns essentially always bore me so they did nothing to help my opinion of the piece. The vocals weren't bad, but some low-pitched clean vocals could sound very good. I also liked the dissonance near the end, I highly suggest making more use of that - especially to brighten up the breakdowns. This honestly reminds me a little bit of late Nevermore, so I think if you were to change the breakdowns to more of a traditional death metal feel and put in some more high-pitched lead guitar in at the chorus you'd be well on your way to really standing out. It's a genre awash with bog-standard material, but this suggests to me that your band has capabilities that can be exercised well. I'm not much of a musician or a music reviewer, but this is just my impression.

[Daniel Wse Whitfield]

Thank you for the opinion, i appreciate it. I will be taking on board what you said about the Dissonance. Obviously we are in a genre that is stuck at all sounding very uninteresting and similar. We try not to think of anything when writing, just what we feel is right. or what we enjoy. We have older stuff also on spotify/youtube. We have changed direction quite a bit recently. If you have the time, check them out. Its interesting to see the path we have made to get to the style we are now. Thanks again.

[FatherAlabaster]

My two cents... not intending to offend you. It's a style I dislike and this sounded pretty standard to me. I'll have to disagree with Iceni, I don't think clean vocals would fit in here terribly well. I wish your vocalist would take a different approach, that metalcore "white rice" vocal sound has been done to death. The playing was good, the recording was good, but I feel like the energy of the performance in the video was a little lacking. The one thing about it that caught my interest was the alternation between the lead and backing vocals. If I was to offer any suggestion, it would be to do whatever you can to make your sound and your songwriting more distinctive. Work harder on your melodies, raise your technical ambitions, see if your vocalist can find his own voice instead of using somebody else's. It's obvious that you guys have the skill to do more than you're doing. Why settle for fitting into a genre?

[Daniel Wse Whitfield]

I don't mean to fire back what seems an answer to everything you commented on. I respect and value everything you said. I'm not defending, I'm just explaining. Believe it or not his vocals are his own. Hes not trying to be anything, that's just the way he has always done it, liked doing it and basically built his voice up. We have other tracks and if you listen back through our small back catalogue you will hear him experiment adding more lows, or just going full highs. This is what he has came to know and love. A mix of both. As for the music, I of course I will disagree, though I cant see many points in my band where we stick to any sort of traditional pattern. We have aspects of all types of metal, obviously its hard to be complete original and you can only really play what you enjoy to hear. Our songs are packed with plenty of different styles and that is mostly down to the range of music we all listen to. I personally listen to Very little metal in comparison with the rest of my band. I believe examples like this give us another edge to play with, as I have no actual idea what things "must" sound like, which I think gives us more of a distinctive sound, less generic. I believe we sit somewhere between Simple but effective and overly technical. Interesting sections, though some slow, simple parts that just make you bob your head. Too technical, you are trying too hard to be others who try too hard. Too Simple and you end up being called lazy or generic, or mainstream. Smack Damn in the middle where you play what you want, from any of the things above is exactly where I want to stay. I agree with out performance. I'm not happy with the video, it was more just something to help promote the song. Its a simple performance video on the cheap basically.

[JBaker]

I think it's always going to be difficult for someone who's not into a particular style to comment objectively on a band that plays in said genre, and the result is often that the person's advice involves changing the musical style to something more to their taste. Not every band has to, or indeed can, be wholly original and I suspect that, if your band played a style more popular here, say progressive death metal, you probably wouldn't have been advised not to 'settle for fitting into a genre'. Modern metalcore, melodic metalcore, whatever you wanna call it, is pretty unpopular here, so this is a barrier you're probably going to continue to face, unfortunately. I do like my fair share of metalcore (both of the melodic and more extreme/underground varieties) and quite enjoyed the track. It didn't strike me as generic As I Lay Dying/Killswitch Engage worship. I could hear how, as you say, you guys like a variety of music and, whilst I'd definitely call it melodic metalcore, I could also hear some LOG/Machine Head-style groove metal influences and even a little death metal. There's some good riffs in there as well. I wouldn't say I loved it but there's definitely more going on here than a lot of young bands in a 'similar' style. I agree with Father's comments about the 2 different vocalists and you could expand this to make something pretty cool.

[deathstorm]

Another. Style you should review is folk metal it's. Pretty good

[Daniel Wse Whitfield]

I think it's always going to be difficult for someone who's not into a particular style to comment objectively on a band that plays in said genre, and the result is often that the person's advice involves changing the musical style to something more to their taste. Not every band has to, or indeed can, be wholly original and I suspect that, if your band played a style more popular here, say progressive death metal, you probably wouldn't have been advised not to 'settle for fitting into a genre'. Modern metalcore, melodic metalcore, whatever you wanna call it, is pretty unpopular here, so this is a barrier you're probably going to continue to face, unfortunately. I do like my fair share of metalcore (both of the melodic and more extreme/underground varieties) and quite enjoyed the track. It didn't strike me as generic As I Lay Dying/Killswitch Engage worship. I could hear how, as you say, you guys like a variety of music and, whilst I'd definitely call it melodic metalcore, I could also hear some LOG/Machine Head-style groove metal influences and even a little death metal. There's some good riffs in there as well. I wouldn't say I loved it but there's definitely more going on here than a lot of young bands in a 'similar' style. I agree with Father's comments about the 2 different vocalists and you could expand this to make something pretty cool.

Thank you, some more great comments. I always love it when people use the word groove to describe what they hear. Makes me a very happy drummer. Using our bassist as a vocalist is only very recent and I'm sure we will end up expanding on this. I'm enjoying this honesty. I can tell its a different style to what people may enjoy on this forum, so i appreciate that you guys are trying to look from a neutral perspective. I know its very hard. The sticking to your own genre comment can be made to any band, no matter how big or small. No one is original, its just the angle you look at it. I believe we go for a more simple view. Play what we enjoy and see what happens next band practice. We most certainly don't sit around pretending to be anyone else. We are too negative, we hate everyone.

[FatherAlabaster]

As for the music' date=' I of course I will disagree, though I cant see many points in my band where we stick to any sort of traditional pattern. We have aspects of all types of metal, obviously its hard to be complete original and you can only really play what you enjoy to hear. Our songs are packed with plenty of different styles and that is mostly down to the range of music we all listen to.[/quote'] Of course - I do the same thing, I draw from a lot of influences and play music that I'd like to listen to. Keeping in mind that I only heard that one song, though, it didn't sound that varied to me - I heard djenty stuff and melodic metalcore. I'll have to listen to your other tracks at some point for a more well-rounded opinion.

[deathstorm]

Listein to alabaster. He is our yoda. He is the wise one

[FatherAlabaster]

I think it's always going to be difficult for someone who's not into a particular style to comment objectively on a band that plays in said genre' date=' and the result is often that the person's advice involves changing the musical style to something more to their taste. Not every band has to, or indeed can, be wholly original and I suspect that, if your band played a style more popular here, say progressive death metal, you probably wouldn't have been advised not to 'settle for fitting into a genre'.[/quote'] You're not wrong, but you're not 100% right either. There's a lot of equally faceless stuff being produced in genres I like better as a whole; there are far more death metal and black metal bands that I don't listen to than there are bands that I do, for the simple reason that a lot of them suck. For that matter, you know I enjoy plenty of stuff with breakdowns and hardcore influences. As regards these guys, there are things they can do to improve their songwriting regardless of genre. It's not just a matter of taste. I can't help that the vocalist's enunciation turns me off, which is a taste issue, but it became a taste issue for me after hearing tons of other people take the same approach. I don't think they need a death metal vocalist, I'd just like for the guy they have to be more distinctive. I'm willing to bet part of that is production, too.

[FatherAlabaster]

Listein to alabaster. He is our yoda. He is the wise one

Here I thought I was more like this guy:

[Daniel Wse Whitfield]

Of course - I do the same thing, I draw from a lot of influences and play music that I'd like to listen to. Keeping in mind that I only heard that one song, though, it didn't sound that varied to me - I heard djenty stuff and melodic metalcore. I'll have to listen to your other tracks at some point for a more well-rounded opinion. This cuts both ways. It's good to have varied tastes in a group, and it's good to not feel confined by what other bands are doing, but there's no reason to think that listening to more metal would make you play things in a more "standard" way. I'm willing to bet there's a good amount of stuff that would inspire you and broaden your horizons. I tend to prefer accurate drummers who play for the song, and know how to give parts the right "feel". I don't think you're doing a bad job at that, by any means. I don't mean "technical" in the sense of flashy, tech-death, deathcore, what-have-you. I'm not saying play more notes or faster riffs or put in more sweep-picking. I hate most of that shit. What I mean by "technical ambition" is that I think you should make your parts more involved. You go through a lot of riffs, but the riffs themselves don't develop internally; does that make sense? When you feel that it's time for a change, you just go into a new part, rather than elaborating on what you're already doing. Part of that is compositional taste, but there's potential in your riffs that you're not exploring. Which ties into my other gripe - since you have some melodic parts and some intricate stuff surrounding all of these breakdowns, and especially since most of the vocal parts happen during the breakdowns, it makes the other parts (to me, the potentially interesting parts) sound like they're just tacked on. They don't feel like they mean business. The meat, the main focus, is the breakdowns. Breakdowns get pretty boring after a while. Being simple and effective is a great goal, but it's easy to be simple without being effective, and a lot of that effectiveness will come from more focused songwriting. The structure you have here starts out strong, and moves forward well, but doesn't help any of the parts to stand out. I'm not saying you have to write a catchy chorus; I stay away from choruses myself. But tightening up the composition would help for it to feel like it had more of a point.

You have some really interesting points. Some I feel are you dislike and possible misunderstanding of what we are going for and others hit the nail on the head. As for the riffs, obviously exploring riffs further is always good and can be beneficial. Though i personally enjoy, not a complete riff fest, though i don't like to linger too much. I like to keep it moving and fresh. We will be aware and increasingly we are paying more attention to repeating parts and sections or expanding on certain parts. Though I myself enjoy being more erratic and ever changing with riffs throughout a song. I will be taking a lot of this away with me. Its interesting and I know will be in the back of my mind at my next band practice.

[deathstorm]

Here I thought I was more like this guy:

yeah you are

[FatherAlabaster]

You have some really interesting points. Some I feel are you dislike and possible misunderstanding of what we are going for and others hit the nail on the head. As for the riffs, obviously exploring riffs further is always good and can be beneficial. Though i personally enjoy, not a complete riff fest, though i don't like to linger too much. I like to keep it moving and fresh. We will be aware and increasingly we are paying more attention to repeating parts and sections or expanding on certain parts. Though I myself enjoy being more erratic and ever changing with riffs throughout a song. I will be taking a lot of this away with me. Its interesting and I know will be in the back of my mind at my next band practice.

Cheers. I love writing songs, and I enjoy talking about songwriting. Good luck.

[Iceni]

Here I thought I was more like this guy:

As our resident Star Wars expert (in Ghouly's absence, anyway) I'd say you're more like Obi-Wan.

[FatherAlabaster]

As our resident Star Wars expert (in Ghouly's absence' date=' anyway) I'd say you're more like Obi-Wan.[/quote'] Annoyingly pedantic and doomed to failure? Sounds about right.

[Daniel Wse Whitfield]

Cheers. I love writing songs' date=' and I enjoy talking about songwriting. Good luck.[/quote'] Thanks mate, you sound like you have a good ear. A guy you need round you in pre-prod. Do you have any recorded music?

[FatherAlabaster]

Thanks mate, you sound like you have a good ear. A guy you need round you in pre-prod. Do you have any recorded music?

Check out my Bandcamp page, there's a link in my sig. I just put a new album out a month ago. Also, I'm remixing the older one up there to get it professionally mastered - I got the new one mastered and it sounds great.

[Daniel Wse Whitfield]

Check out my Bandcamp page' date=' there's a link in my sig. I just put a new album out a month ago. Also, I'm remixing the older one up there to get it professionally mastered - I got the new one mastered and it sounds great.[/quote'] I have a mate who would love that. Personally a bit more death than I'm used too. I'll give it a more extensive listen when i get time.

[RelentlessOblivion]

Check out my Bandcamp page' date=' there's a link in my sig. I just put a new album out a month ago. Also, I'm remixing the older one up there to get it professionally mastered - I got the new one mastered and it sounds great.[/quote'] Speaking of Black Harvest any word on the kickstarter/physical copy front?

[FatherAlabaster]

Speaking of Black Harvest any word on the kickstarter/physical copy front?

Nothing solid yet. We've been planning, but the guy who runs the label is very busy right now. I'll definitely make few posts about it once we have a start date. In other news, the Ingrate remix is going really well! Everything's coming together. I'm very excited to hear those songs sounding like I wanted them to.

[Sinful Tranquility]

I'm no reviewer, but I really like what you've done with your single. One tip, which i'm sure you know is to just keep on writing lyrics and creating instrumentals, that way you can build up a portfolio of your work. If I was to rate it I would give it an 8/10 Keep up the good work