Ephemerality

Ephemerality's debut EP would make a great album for people with trust issues. Like, extreme, pathological trust issues. The kinds of people who listen to a Dream Theater song and have a panic attack because it has a time signature change. People who need to be convinced beyond a shadow of a doubt that the music isn't going to betray them and display anything that you weren't expecting when you walked in the door. Ephemerality wears its influences right on its face and, with a straight face, reiterates the basest ideas of a trend that was probably explored to its fullest extent around 2007.

"Melodic death metal/metalcore" is really about all you need to know. Think of any of those hundreds of bands that faded in and out of existence between 2005 and 2011 and you know exactly what to expect. Arch Enemy is probably a good enough reference point, although this has a bit less malevolence than that. The Agonist or the more metal parts of Bullet for My Valentine are probably a closer comparison. Either way, with those names dropped I probably don't need to elaborate further, but in case you lived under a rock during that stretch of time: the guitars are tuned to C, half of the sections are palm-muted chugging on the low E with minor scale arpeggios thrown in, the other half is hard rock chords and occasional groove metal twanging, and there's a lot of swooping, pretty leads and solos that dance over the music while the rhythm guitars just play a chord progression. Unabashedly dumbed-down metalcore breakdowns make occasional appearances to remind you that this is, in fact, a "/METALCORE" version of melodic death metal. None of the songs have any sort of unique identity, and any two of the riffs from different songs could probably be swapped for one another without anybody noticing.

With regards to the drums, there's exactly one instance of what might constitute a blast beat (at around 0:55 in the first track) - the rest is mostly just slow, simplified rocking patterns that propel the music forward but don't do much else. The vocals are performed by a woman, drawing further comparisons to Arch Enemy and The Agonist. She actually sounds quite similar to Alyssa White-Gluz - expect some typical mid-range rasps with little variation in tone or value-add to the riffs. Nothing particularly emotive like Intestine Baalism's vocals; again, you know what you're getting.

I could go on describing what this EP sounds like, but you already know. Refer back to your mental archetype of a late-oughts melodeath band and you immediately know more about Ephemerality than I could ever tell you. You probably didn't even need me to tell you that the bass is nearly inaudible or that the production is overly polished; it's essentially a given. This isn't even color-by-numbers, it's like a Thomas Kinkade painting, mass-produced and guaranteed to elicit the most middling of responses. Personally, as somebody who listens to almost zero music like this, I don't mind it, but my tolerance may be higher than somebody who's trudged through a lot more bands that sound like this while trying to find bands like Garden of Shadows or the aforementioned Intestine Baalism. The most interesting thing, really, is the irony of the band being named Ephemerality: I wouldn't expect a band that sounds like this to last very long, either.