Campus - Empathy
Small Town Records' Campus hail from Belgium and continue the never-ending conveyer belt of Belgian post-hardcore and metalcore talent rolling with this, their new 4 track EP. Quoting a line from the press release gives the uninitiated a pretty solid, brief description of where the 5 piece are coming from: 'loud and abrasive metallic hardcore with a careful balance of melody and groove'.
Yes, that all sounds fairly familiar - and yes there is something 'tried and tested Small Town' about the songs on offer here - but it is very solid stuff. The title track is a polished cross between Shipwreck AD and older Johnny Truant stuff - duelled, dropped tuning riffs before some heavily reverbed chorus vocals. A groove it definitely does have.
The accompanying tracks don't stray too far from the same theme - ferocious in places, exceptionally refined in others. Campus also excel in the art of the breakdown - third track Down Time being more breakdown than song. And that is never going to be a bad thing.
There is a slight feeling of cliche in places - the riff/melodic chorus combination will grate on some - but Campus have achieved a level near the benchmark of metalcore/metallic hardcore with this EP - without straying too far from long layed out definitions of the genre. Well worth getting hold of this if you can imagine it floating your proverbial boat.