Mutiny Within

Mutiny Within are one of numerous acts that have cropped up over the past couple years in my home state of New Jersey, these guys being around now for the better part of almost a decade and I've followed them on and off throughout the years. From lineup to lineup, style to style, show to show, I've known Mutiny Within well. They originally were just your local kids on the block trying to be "brutal", then they tried badly to be a Children of Bodom power death kind of thing, then they become a deathcore band with keyboards, and now they're something else that is very appealing to Roadrunner records, who have signed the band to a massive deal and have put out their debut release, a self titled album.

What Mutiny Within has done over the years is really tried to become less of an "epic" band and more of a progressive band. The best way to describe this sound is take Dream Theater's more moody pieces and mix them in with some Soilwork drumming, a few Symphony esque grooves, and a good dose of technical. That's a rough idea of what Mutiny Within sounds like. By no means though is band a metalcore band or is this a typical Roadrunner album.

Seriously, why does every band with a vocalist who does the growl to clean thing labeled a metalcore band?! Some can just do both and will do both for their music. And it's not like Chris Clancy does either really bad. In fact, he does them both well. The clean vocals are markedly better then the growls, which are sort of like a more high pitched version of Bjorn Stridd mixed with some Mikael Akerfeld thrown in. They work well, but could be better. Either way, the guy uses the clean vocals on a sixty forty ratio, and his operatically trained voice sounds totally unique to Chris himself. What Chris does best is put emotion in his vocals, and his vocals really fit the deeply introspective lyrics of Mutiny Within that sound a lot like something one would hear from a typical (Non concept related) Dream Theater song. Thanks to his voice, the band pulls this off incredibly well and do a great job at pushing the emotion thanks to Chris.

The guitars are done well, though not enough of the songs are really guitar driven. Most of the songs are half guitar/half keyboard driven, with a few exceptions (Images, Forsaken, and Lethean are notable exceptions). They tend to work within a few basic grooves that can be Soilwork to Symphony X esque for the riffs, which is adequate, if not redundant, for me considering the drumming is above average and the keyboards help carry things along most of the way. Where the guitars really shine is in the technical parts, such as the sweeping intro of Lethean and the variety of pseudo-technical harmonies throughout the album. The solo department is top notch for these guys, and they have all the ability in the world when it comes to the soloing, especially lead guitarist Brandon Jacobs. They have enough of a wow factor to blow you away the same way the Giants running back Mutiny Within's talented young six string maestro and will leave you feeling like these got some real skill. The drumming, as said, is above average even if Bill Fiore doesn't really do anything new. He throws in a lot of double bass in parts where you wouldn't expect it and keeps things interesting, but I think he could've been a bit more unique. The bass is practically inaudible except for a quick solo in Images, and even that is rudimentary.

Where Mutiny Within do incredibly well, as well as they do with the vocals, is their approach to the keyboards. Drew Stavola is the halfway mark between symphonic power metal keyboard players who simply use the keyboard for epicness and progressive music wizard Jordan Ruddess. What I mean is this guy uses the keys to both carry the songs in conjunction with the guitars and solos occasionally, and he composes himself very well. The keys aren't overdone on this album and the lines that he composes sound crisp, fresh, and original using the right mix of synths with actually just a lot of plain piano! How's that for a change? Little to no synthetic orchestration or synthetic choirs, but a keyboardist using mostly simple piano sounds. I know, not that original but hey it sounds good. His solos aren't exactly mind blowing, but they're enough to leave me satisfied.

The production is crisp and modern. Plastic sounding drums, polished guitars, well treated vocals, and little to no bass. It's okay for what it is. I wish the guitars were a bit more pushed out and didn't sound so thunderous and sweeping, and actually a little more guitar like. These guys should really take a look at Dream Theater when it comes to producing a prog record.

What Mutiny Within (the album) can best be described as is what I call "The Roadrunner Records intro album".I've seen this with a lot of veteran bands, such as Megadeth, Dream Theater, and to a lesser extent Machine Head after they've been picked up by Roadrunner and start putting out albums on the label. The first album a band puts out through Roadrunner tends to be toned down, mainstreamized, and generally is criticized as being sub-par (ala Megadeth's United Abominations) at best or a sell out affair (ala Cradle of Filth's Thornography). The next album bursts out onto the scene and turns out to be great as we've seen recently (Megadeth's Endgame or Dream Theater's Black Clouds and Silver Linings). I thought this only existed in the case of veteran bands that the label picked up, as a sign of respect they lifted their artistic grip on the band to ensure they can go nuts and that the record would sell. I never saw this from a new band signed to Roadrunner, until now. Mutiny Within's self titled debut is a good preview of what is to come for this band, and it's good album in it's own right.