Album Review: Descending - New Death Celebrity

Imagine a combination of DevilDriver’s turbulent groove, Gojira’s distinctive grinding action and Sylosis’ lust for both speed and melody – we could call them Deviralosis. That, my friend, would be my perfect metal band… the sound of the Four Horseman of the Apocalypse riding out.

Now have a listen to some of the samples, just a mouse-click away, that accompany these words. The band that produced them are Descending. They hail from Athens in Greece and, as a truly modern metal band would, they genre-hop with the best of them. One album in the bag and after “a long period of intensive work”, with producer extraordinaire Fredrik Nordstrom (In Flames, Dimmu Borgir, Arch Enemy), they are now quite adept at fusing thrash, math and groove metal together to create the shape of a fist which they then use to batter you with. They also dabble in a spot of metalcore but more of that later. Their already impressive list of support slots (Testament, Gojira, Shadows Fall, The Haunted, Lamb Of God, etc.) proves just how hard their sound is to pin down.

From the get-go, the offbeat thudding of drummer Nick Vell’s feet serves to elevate the two-chord writhing action that lurks within “No Other Gods Before Me”. Throw in the swarming, layered death vocal of John Simvonis and his vocal compatriot, the bassist Noir, and you’ve got yourself a whole world of pain. Yet they can go heavier as “I Keep Returning” proves. It regurgitates an embittered, grimy veneer which empowers the choruses and brings an oppressive dark quality to the verses. Still heavier they go as this kind of damaging battery is scaled up tenfold in the mammoth crush that “The Energy” engages in. Reminiscent of Chimaira at their most violent, it provides the perfect foil to the colossal Gojira-esque powerchug stomp that rips a path through “Shared Planet”.

With so much punishment being served, the band’s purposeful move towards replacing some of this giant groove with pumped vocal hooks, lingering riffs and ‘core breaks was always going to be the album’s downfall. Tracks like “Suicide Promise”, “Until I Generate” and “How Much This Life Weights?” although catchy in the chorus, feel loose, pudgy and overwrought as the music increasingly lurches towards a kind of vaguely generic-sounding metalcore. “The Ghost Of Nation Past” pops in a disembodied old recording, a bar of clean vocal and loads up with screeching beatdowns, possibly in an effort to liven up proceedings, but from here it’s just a sinking ship.

Clearly, what we have here is an album with a multiple personality disorder – a vision divided down the middle. When they get heavy, they are an unstoppable force, slowly increasing the pressure in furiously inventive ways. When they slack off and get cute, they fall back into that familiar mold which has shaped so many bands before them. Descending’s talent is undeniable, their promise is palpable; they just need to fully realise it. My new favourite band, Deviralosis, is but a stone’s throw away.

Also online (with samples) @ The NewReview = http://thenewreview.net/reviews/descending-new-death-celebrity

Album Review: The Subways - Money And Celebrity

The Subways are a band that has always unapologetically walked the tightrope of being gloriously addictive and mind-numbingly repetitive. They’ve always tended to stick close to the steady, predictable path of verse, chorus, verse and, rather than stray into composing complex structures, focused all their efforts on ramming home just how energetically they can perform each note or shout each lyric. In the past, it’s a tactic that has got them noticed and their hard-work ethic has resulted in them nailing down some serious festival and tour slots. The big push forward, of course, never quite came due to the recorded material never selling in decent numbers. Now, with the release of this, their third album, just when you feel they needed to go for the jugular and try a different approach, maybe put themselves out on a bit of a limb, it’s a a surprise to find them still banging out those same songs, simply tweaked and repackaged.

Tracks like ‘It’s A Party’ and ‘We Don’t Need Money To Have A Good Time’ utilises that same recognisably dynamic, guitar-driven pop-punk that boots in the teeth of the listener, whilst all the time flinging cloyingly predictable lines at you about just how simple things can be if you don’t engage your brain. On a certain level, the usual boy/girl vocal works as well as it ever did with Billy Lunn effectively sticking two fingers up at everything whilst Charlotte Cooper waves her arms manically in the air, egging him on. When the two vocals come together, it’s a riot of carefree singing. The trouble is many of us will have stopped listening by the second chorus. Maybe it’s me that’s grown up or them that haven’t (they really should have by now), but what previously might have passed for youthful enthusiasm, now is all too easily translated as mere immaturity.

‘I Wanna Dance With You’ takes the pace down a notch, with producer Stephen Street softening up the pretty flabby mix even further. Sadly, it all ends up sounding like a cross between The Lightning Seeds and Hard-Fi rather than something new and exciting. With the drab ‘Celebrity’ miserably poking fun at the vacuous – “She doesn’t care about the TV shows / Unless of course it’s about Eastenders / Hollywood is where she wants to go”, ‘Down Our Street’ doo-dooing and skipping along like some clueless Ocean Colour Scene pop fodder and ‘Money’ showing off a duff snare sound that has been muffled into a dull thud, there’s much to find fault with. Thankfully, ‘Popdeath’ wraps itself around you with the vocals intertwined and harmonising nicely, ‘Kiss Kiss Bang Bang’ kicks up a neat riff and some effortlessly addictive angeldust, and ‘Rumour’ plucks away at a dark series of chords and unravels some true vitriol.

I find myself disappointedly reporting that Money And Celebrity has no spectacular surprises or dangerously emotional forays. Nope, this is the same happy-go-lucky bunch of silly sods you fell in love with six years ago. They remain steadfastly within the limitations of their respective abilities, playing to their strengths, bypassing their obvious weaknesses. In a sense, they are magicians – song after song emerge from their hats, each one instantly recognisable and unsettlingly reminiscent of something you just can’t put your finger on. Ironically, The Subways are still doing what it says on the tin, a fact that will probably be their downfall.

Also online @ TLOBF = http://www.thelineofbestfit.com/2011/10/the-subways-money-and-celebrity/