Since The Flood – No Compromise

Right off the start, I’d just like to say I was very pleased with this album. It was just a really solid release on this bands part and to be honest, I wasn’t really expecting that much from them. That is until I learned that they’re one of Metal Blades’ finest, then I was fairly excited to see what I’d be getting. So I waited, days turned to weeks, weeks to months, and I think after having been sent several copies, it finally came. This leads me to believe that I may have a crooked postal worker serving up my mail, or lack thereof. Anyways, I got right down to it and popped the album in my CD tray. What I heard sounded like a mix of several bands I’m all too familiar with, so deliberating what these guys are reminiscent of didn’t really bother me. Imagine a mix of Figure Four, Give Up The Ghost, The Hope Conspiracy, and Blacklisted. The music transitions almost too perfectly, the songs don’t really leave you guessing what’s going to come next. While I was listening along I predicted rather accurately what was going to come up next. The music is fairly dance oriented (not ballroom dancing, the whole “throwdown” thing), there’s many a two-step breakdown and lots of quick riffs to get a crowd moving. It’s not the most technical music, but it seems to have been recorded flawlessly. You won’t pick up a single error that anyone might have made. The CD really didn’t take very long to grow on me either, the music does wonders if you’re looking to pump yourself up for something (I was listening to it while snowboarding). For the most part the music stays at a very fast pace, excluding maybe a few breakdowns in a handful of songs that get a bit slower than the rest of the album. Eventually the songs begin to sound fairly similar, it made picking out a favorite rather difficult. The guitar riffs just didn’t seem to change up that much and as I said before, a bit predictable (I think every heavy band plays ESP guitars nowadays as well, just look at that company’s roster). Oddly enough, the guitar still seems to drive the band, along with the vocals. But, not for the last time, the bass could be much more audible. This album wasn’t exactly filled with disappointment though, so I have a minimum of complaints this time around.

This brings me to my recommendation I would think. I’m assuming that sooner or later I would have heard this band somewhere had I not got this CD, and I would have had the exact same reaction. Except instead of listening to the album (which at this point in the metaphor is not in my possession yet) I’d listen to as many songs as possible then begin a search for it. The search would most likely take me to a CD Store, where I would buy this, which is what I think anyone should do if they have an interest in this kind of music. It’s a really good album and I can’t wait to see what else these guys put out in the future. Check them out, except if you’re going to use the internet, use purevolume as opposed to myspace. I’m getting tired of seeing myspace links in press releases. Once I even saw a band boasting that they had a friend count of “70000” needless to say, it was a sad day for North America.