Means – Sending You Strength

As soon as I tore open the envelope containing this CD and saw it fall into my open hand I could not remember why the name seemed familiar. It turns out that I saw this band play a few months ago at a fairly memorable Halloween show that took place in an abandoned military prison. To be honest though, this album I’ve received was a lot like the show they put on, good until the singer takes over for the main vocalist. I cannot begin to describe how annoying I find it when so-called “melodic” parts ruin an otherwise good song. That alone is going to most likely contribute to my neglect of this album in the future. I know I’m not the only person who feels this way, at the show I mentioned a moment ago, the crowd was pretty psyched off the band that came before these guys (a local Edmonton band called High Jinks) and then everyone went nuts when the headliner played (another local; Run With The Hunted). But nobody was really doing much for these guys and hopefully that should be a sign that these bands incorporating singing into what should be heavy songs might need to lay off the melody or get eaten alive when the trend dies. At least this band is instrumentally sound, but this doesn’t mean that they stray from the formula set down by metalcore/hardcore bands before them.

Frankly, I was just not very impressed with this album, especially after Facedown puts out some of my favorites of 06’. It kills me to say that too, they seemed like really nice people. I can only wish them the best of luck and I really hope that they change up their sound on their next album. From what I’ve heard, I don’t recommend getting this album when I can think of hundred’s of others that I’d much rather have. It wouldn’t hurt to give them a try though, they’re probably all over the internet, so give them a try, you might like them more than I did.