Walls of Jericho – Redemption

Listen, don’t tell me I don’t do my research: there are videos of this band available for viewing on the internet. I’ve seen a couple. It’s some full-blown, crazed shit. Like Dismemberment Plan versus, I don’t know, Entombed or Disemboweled in a cage match, with vocalist Candace Kucsulain sounding like a crank-addled hobgoblin getting a colonoscopy sans anesthetic. I mean, she didn’t even sound human. The music was entertaining, at least in short doses, for the simple fact that it was so goddamn weird and menacing, and the woman’s vocals were just so insanely over the top.

So you can imagine my surprise when I listened to Redemption, because this is a 5-song EP of nothing but (brace yourselves) nu-metal power ballads. Seriously. Straight-up. You got your sparse instrumentation, your emphasis on melody, your wanking guitar solos over mid-tempo acoustic stuff, violin interspersed throughout, and Kucsulain abandons her hobbit-growl for actual singing. Apart from the fact that it sounds 100% like an entirely different band (if Off With Their Heads decided to do a polka album, or God Speed You Black Emperor kicked out a ska record, it’d be about as much of a marked transition) but the stuff on Redemption’s… well, it’s just pretty boring. I feel bad for saying it, as the first song serves as a eulogy for Kucsulain’s mother and the rest of the songs are also trying to show some depth, but the whole thing comes off as pretty overblown, with such an emphasis on theatric breakdowns and melodies that it’s hard to really get emotionally invested in them.

Apparently produced by Corey Taylor of Slipknot (he also plays guitar on a few tracks – that’s probably where much of the wankery comes from) and released on Trustkill, I really don’t know who the intended audience is for this EP. They do a cover of “House of the Rising Sun” – which actually fits the best with this soft-pedalled metallic-lite approach they’re going with, but I honestly can’t imagine fans of the band being too into this, or anyone besides folks who are still lamenting the fact that Tesla broke up a long time ago. In short: bring back the hobgoblin! We want the hobgoblin!