Before I get into talking about the song that I’m going to review, I want to add that although I have met and know some members of the band, I’ve never seen them live and this is the first recorded material I’ve heard from them. Also worth mentioning is the production on the track. I’m very very impressed with it, as I understand that it was done by Celestial Recordings, who are obviously making themselves quite a good reputation. For readers that are in bands, it seems it would be worth checking out Mr. Celestial.

So, I get this song… “Adrienne Lynn” from SLV, and I press play, not really knowing what to expect at all. Going by the fact that I’d really heard nothing from them prior to this, I wasn’t expecting what I heard.

What hits you straight away is the vocals, mixing up between shouting and more throat screaming. I really like the impact that it creates, because although the backing track isn’t extremely heavy, it’s really upbeat and gives the intro a really bouncy feeling, since their vocalist has used a very good lyric / syllable structure that is kept as a theme throughout the verses in the song. Although some people may dislike this kind of thing, I actually quite enjoy it because it makes the song sing-alongable even if you don’t know the lyrics.

I really like the emotive feel of the song in general, it’s not a blood and guts metal song but it’s not a fuck-the-establishment song either.

From the vocals in particular you get this uplifting feeling, he’s obviously very passionate about what he’s doing, I would love to have a look over one of theirlyric sheets to see exactly what is being discussed. This song just screams passion for me.

The second section of the song (I guess a pre-chorus of some sort) breaks it down before the chorus hits.Personally I think that the overuse of pinch harmonics in the sections grinds the ears a little bit but as soon as the chorus hits you, youforget about that quickly. Melodic vocal lines and catchy drum patterns make this easily the most memorable part of the song

That’s the main thing that I like about this song - it’s memorable. I can be sitting on one of my many hour-long bus journeys into college and this chorus will quite often pop into my head, and I always get off the bus wanting to find and listen to the track

There is a small breakdown-type section that I feel they could have done more with, but it does it’s job of building up to the next section

Overall I do really enjoy the track and I look forward to hearing more from these guys! Especially live, I’d love to see how they fare on stage.

I do however think that there is room for them to grow on their sound, especially where guitars are concerned. I think that their drum and vocal parts are near enough spot on, but there is something missing in the riffs that are being laid down, although it’s difficult to pin exactly what it is. Maybe Less pinch harmonics?

7 or 8 out of 10.

For any review I attempt to keep a clear head and try to listen or watch anything before hand, so it doesn’t cloud my judgement on the band or style of music. So here we go!

The song gently leads into a nicely overlayed acoustic guitar whilst simumultainously an alternately picked guitar, this carries on for the right amount of time before everything kicks in with a powerful rhythm and penetrating drum kicking me in the ears, the guitar appears for a few brief moments throughout.

the tempo slows down for a short second then BAM! Into the first verse and it’s apparent that the blend of clean and screamed vocals will be constant through the entire song aswell as small but powerful breakdowns that will make any 12 to 16 year old girl bounce around in the confinement’s of their room or at any of this bands live shows, but disappointingly it’s hard for any bands nowadays to not use different vocal techniques such as screaming and clean singing or breakdowns as it is the current craze in every genre.

A while into the song everything apart from the lead guitar and drums stops but keeps driving and leads into a …Groove! As soon as everything boomed in I instantly head bopped and tapped my feet!
The screamed vocals blast in with every part that they are featured in, and tell everyone they’re there and won’t go without a fight.

Lead and solo’ed guitars come in at the expected times of most songs and last no longer than a few seconds but give sections of this song a lot of character.

To sum up this song, it has a lot of musicianship and structure around it, it is hard to see this in bands of today but compared to of 20/30 years ago must of influenced this band, but my cons to this song is that a few sections drag out or last longer than they should but is still a good song to listen too.

I’m not going to rate this out of 10 but all I will say is I thoroughly enjoyed this piece of music and you should take time to listen to it and you to be the judge.

Connah
Unknown Sound 

SecondSon - Halo (2010)

The song opens with a rapturous guitar riff, speedy and heavy, and leads you to expect some great metal or heavy rock, though it disappointingly mellows out into a slower tempo. Although, huge soaring vocals throughout the verses and choruses do provide a good structure and overall sound to the song. Melodic guitar symphonies throughout, very reminiscent of the classic rock era, mixing together the well constructed note changes over 80’s thrash. The song does deserve to be played at a quicker tempo, though the guitar solo is very technical and could be compared to the likes of Avenged Sevenfold and Machine Head. Some seemingly technical sounding drum patterns, as timings change throughout the song, and they do provide a solid foundation to the guitars and bass in the song. The song as a whole is good, but it seems to lose its way. The tempo shifts, changes between thrash and classic; it either works or it doesn’t. In some cases it does in this song, where sometimes it lacks direction and focus, but overall the song is very good.

8/10

For fans of: Avenged Sevenfold, Guns n’ Roses, Machine Head, Metallica.

David
Unknown Sound 

So let’s get one thing straight before I dive into reviewing “If Error Were True” by Impaled Existence. I don’t really like death metal / deathcore, or whatever you want to call it. I like a bit of Whitechapel, but other than that I find that it all tends to sound extremely similar. But from the first few notes of this song, you can tell that this isn’t your run of the mill chug chug bree bree death metal band. This song immediately got my attention with the stop / start intro, and it definitely sets the mood for the song well.
Then we enter the guttural roars of mister Danny Hughes, a bear of a man by all descriptions. His vocals really add to the overall feeling of the song, and the rhythm at which he spouts his ferocity really accentuates that Impaled want to do more than chug in the minor scale and shout angry lyrics. I’m getting quite a groovy feeling from the verse, you can almost imagine a bit of a nu-metal bounce here. Another thing worth noting that I like about this band is that they know how to go from one section to the next. It may not sound like much, but one of the things I do find boring about most death metal is that it’s just riff followed by riff followed by riff and they don’t always fit together. Impaled have managed to overcome this a lot by actually adding little bits in between the sections, so that if it’s going from a fast, chuggy riff to a more rhythm orientated section, it makes SENSE.
BREAKDOWN. Yes, we’ve all heard about a million different breakdowns, but this one really messes with your head, you think you’ve started to get where it’s going, then it turns around and kicks you in the face. I really don’t understand how their drummer Nathan does it.
Wait a minute, do I hear strings? Sure, it may not exactly sound like an actual orchestra, but this is a clever way that they’ve made holding those chords more interesting. They’ve lowered the tone here, but only to give you false hope that your face is going to stop melting, because onwards we go into another heavily rhythm based section, with syncopated guitar and drum work really giving you something to nod your head to. As they take us until the next section, I can really feel something building up, but it seems to be a bit of an anti climax in that sense as we head back into a verse.

But wait a minute – then we go into OH DEAR, we were just trying to pick up our melted faces off the floor and here they hit us with… well I’d say “face melting” wouldn’t do it justice. This breakdown is possibly the same rhythm as the first (it’s too all over the place for me to figure it out!) but in half time. And we all know what half time means…. it’s time to get your mosh on.

Overall this song really takes you on a journey, I can imagine this song as a soundtrack to some sort of epic war between heaven and hell, hell making the first attack, heaven bringing out some sort of holy weapon toward the middle but overall, hell beating heaven back and kicking some angel ass. I think they ended the song on an exceptional note – you want more, but do you want more of the same song? No not really, let’s put the next track on. They managed to keep it short enough to not be boring, but long enough for that epic journey to still take place. It’s a pleasure to have such a good band on the Unknown Sound roster.


Marks out of ten? I’m not even going to say, you all know what the answer is.
Keep your eyes and ears open, as this track will be on their soon-to-be-released E.P “These Lifeless Plains” I’ll be picking one up – so should you.

Mathew
Unknown Sound

So I managed to grab Eddie from epic local band “A View From Saturn” for an hour or so online – here are the fruits of our conversation!

(Q)So to start off with, Where does the name “A View From Saturn” come from? Is it influenced by anything or a reference to anything?

I just thought one day, that if you look down from space at the world like say from saturn for example, the world looks astonishing. Though if you actually get right down in it, it’s practically full of shit (Laugh) Depressing as it is, i can’t say i’m a big fan of the human race and what they have done for the world

(Q)That’s pretty deep! So do the lyrics talk about that in further detail or is it strictly the idea for the band name?

Just the idea for the band name, the lyrics cover various subjects, usually the whole “love/hate” ideas, basic stuff really. Though “Becoming a silhouette” is about living in the shadow of somebody

We like our lyrics to be metaphorical, and not too obvious

(Q)Could you describe your sound to someone that’s never heard you before

Like cancer in physical form is raping your mum. Then shat in your shoes as you walk to the phone to call the police, who call you a liar. Then your wife leaves you

Something along those lines

Next to MOODY AS HELL ON IT’S JAMRAG

Depressing but uplifting

I don’t know, we like what we play, we’re not sure why

(Q)So you’re a bunch of miserable sods and you like to cheer yourselves up with your own music? (Laugh)

No we’re happy cheery people who play miserable, emotional music, we’re very emo. We’re not proud of it. It’s all about getting drunk and getting in the moment when listening to us. It’s not a bad thing

(Q)So for you personally and / or the band in general, who are your influences? Not just in what you write but who influences you to play guitar etc.

Well i mostly write the music, but we all chip in a bit, and we’re all quite diverse in our influences. I guess it dirives mostly from bands such as devilsoldhissoul, architects, Bring Me The Horizon, sikth, periphery, even though they are quite technical and we’re pretty far from that. We’re also influenced by lots of other artists you wouldn’t expect such as Antoine dufour, newton faulkner, paramore, and reuben. the list is massive

(Q)Any shows coming up that you’d like to plug?

Well, recently our drummer Connor maylins left to pursue other projects so we’ve cancelled a couple unfortunatly, though we’ll be playing with our good friends Orestea on April 12th in the Old wharf in birmingham, we’re also set to play the Tivoli in Wrexham on the 13th of may

(Q)I was actually going to ask about Connor leaving, how come that came about? And how is finding a new drummer going?

Just things were getting a bit complicated because everybody in the band lives in different places, and practise was difficult to get together, costing time and money. Plus he’s much involved with his own projects, and he felt the band was being a burden, which i think most of us felt during this period. We like to keep it chilled without too much pressure, but it got hard with so much going on.

(Q)So do you have someone else lined up or are you still looking?

We have a couple of people lined up and getting involved, but we haven’t begun audtioning yet, if anyone is interested, get in contact

(Q)So where would you, as a band, like to see yourselves in a year?

Sniffing coke off of hookers bums with £100 notes because we’ve finally made it

(Q)(Laugh)Fair enough! So do you have any new music in the pipeline at all?

Yeah, we’ve got a couple of new tunes lined up, quite different to the E.P. i must say, but definitely some belters, can’t wait to get them out there really

(Q)Would you be willing to give away how they’re different, and maybe a couple of tracks names people should keep an eye out for?

They’re slighty more complicated i guess, though not too obviously which is how we like it. There’s two new songs which such be played in following gigs called “Akathasia” and “Final”

(Q)You guys scream in your music. What do your parents think of it? Do you recieve any negative feedback just because of the vocals?

(Laugh) can’t say our parents have ever been a problem, especially considering we practise in my house now. Yeah most people aren’t big on some of the vocal parts. Even though there isn’t a great deal of them in our songs. A lot of people dig our songs up until the vocal parts, though i believe the screaming vocals or what ever you want to call it, add really good emotion and depth to the melting pot

(Q)Ah, so you feel like that they accentuate the aggression and general feel that you’re going for?

Definitely, i think the music brings the feel then the vocals and lyrics just highlight and translate that

(Q)Alright, well thank you very much for your time!

No problem at all, I enjoyed it!

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