Harmonicraft

This release is just straight up horse diarrhea. You know this is going to be one of the most atrocious things you've ever encountered in life when the first 5 seconds sound like one of those Jimmy Eat World equivalents Victory Records was trying to pass off as "heavy and cool" back in the mid 2000s on those MTV2 commercials that played during Jamey Jasta's show. This is offensively bad on every level and I sincerely hope no one who hasn't already heard this band ever hears them.

The lyrics and song titles suggest some kind of "random hipster poetry" is at work here. A bunch of random words were chosen as song titles then directionless "train of thought" style word vomit is thrown around as an excuse for lyrics. They are delivered through this annoyingly cheerful pop-punk style of vocal that is not only cringe inducing, but one dimensional as well. They make a later day Pitch Shifter song sound like an early Bill Steer vocal track by comparison. Very awful and obviously commercially motivated.

Of course, worse than any of this is the music being played in the background. Sounding like the direct result of focus groups coming up with a way to repackage Godflesh's Hymns album in a way that would appeal to Kylesa and Baroness fans, this band is all radio rock and aesthetics. They use the down tuning and thick, fuzzy distortion that sludge/stoner bands use, but like the majority of those bands, play radio rock in disguise (not really a disguise unless you think thick distortion and down tuning instantly makes music "metal"). Songs are bouncy, made for mainstream audiences to "rock out", "dance", and "groove" to those overly cheerful verses and choruses. The songs never deviate from this state of "absurdly hokey cheerfulness" and it sounds like brainwashing propaganda after more than 2 tracks (maybe that's why mainstream audiences can stand watching shows with only bands like these playing for 3 hours). Just muddy 2 note droning interrupted by pop-punk/alt-rock minor key bittersweetness adnauseum. It also sounds interchangeable (aside from maybe those really whiny vocals) with the more commercial "stoner" crap labels like Relapse have released recently. Nothing new, different, better, or inspiring about this useless ROCK release.

Listening to an earlier Torche release that sounds interchangeable with this album raises the question: why is this band still continuing with this crap? Where other bands playing what is effectively the same thing and achieving a higher degree of commercial success without as "neutered" a sound as this band, you would think they'd be more honest and just make a pop-punk band already to really show people they want money. Unfortunately, we have another useless Florida band that will take it's rightful place underneath the Orbweaver, Hibernus Mortis, Endo, Paralysys, and other vapid local band albums that were given to me whenever I decide to get drunk and play CD hockey again. Avoid this estrogen inducing mess at any cost.