Mutiny Within

Well, this is Mutiny Within's debut album. An album I kinda looked forward to when I heard some demo tracks of theirs, most notably "Awake" from Roadrunner Record's "Annual Assault" compilation in 2009. Now when I've had about a year and a half to melt it down and get a honest opinion of it, the only thing I can say is that they do seem to struggle a lot about what sound to be / have. In other words, they seem to be lost as a band.

I remember some of my thoughts after my first listening to the album. The first was how they had remade "Awake". I didn't like the album version as much as the demo one. My other thought was that the whole album sounded like Roadrunner had raped them totally, just so that they could sound as commercial as possible. That's a sad thing, really ... So a big FUCK YOU to all the big labels that do this to good bands.

But to describe Mutiny Within's music. Well, I don't know what they are (supposed to be). They play metal with a modern touch with influences from progressive, metalcore and I imagine some emo shit as well. This is the most annoying thing about this band / album - they can't stick to one kind of style / genre. I mean, it's good to have a nice variety in music, if so only on one album alone, but this is like somewhat too much to handle. It's kinda like every band member has their own musical taste and adds it to the band. The end result is a clash. Bands like Faith No More does this, but they do it on purpose and their music therefor sounds good, too. Here it doesn't sound like it was intentional to do that, thus making the music sound kinda schizoid.

Anyway, the music is still not bad. I actually still like much of it, but still some of it annoys me more or less. Musically the band are good musicians that play very well. They actually deliver some good riffing and the drumming is pretty nice and solid. Not too much blastbeats and shit (a.k.a. showing off / drum wanking), which I like. The probably weakest link in the band is the one that seems to be the strongest - singer Chris Clancy. I mean he's a very good and competent singer with a big voice, but he doesn't have any integrity. He's also the biggest reason why the band sounds so schizophrenic. He sings in so many different styles that I don't even bother to count how many. Also, even though he sings good, his clean / powerful voice sounds quite whiney. It's like he's trying to have some kind of power / progressive metal voice but sings in a whiney emo-way. He should stick to one or two styles instead. I also hate all that fucking inhale growl shit. That shit does NOT sound good (that goes for all bands that sings that way). It only sounds like horny fifteen-year-olds that are angry at their parents for not getting their weekly pocket money.

I recommend this album for fans of bands like Machine Head, Trivium and maybe power / prog metal, but that might be a longshot. There are ups and downs on this album, but in whole I think it's a decent / good album. Not awesome, but not bad. The band definitely has potential and I hope that their next album will be better and that they find their own kind of style.

Listen to: Years of Affliction, Reflections, Awake
Avoid: Undone, Hours, Losing Sight