4

Polish hard core

Hey what nice packaging, it's very shiny and has quite cool artwork on it. The digipack opens up to reveal a nicely drawn CD beneath which is a composite photo of the band. Then there's the inlay booklet, shiny again with more drawings.

Why on earth am I going on about the packaging so much? Mostly because it's the most interesting bit of this release. Once you slip the CD in you realise the shiny, well drawn packaging is covering up a mediocre hard core disc. 29 minutes of mildly interesting album that isn't going to have UK fans clamouring to hear more

The most obvious problem with this is that the production dips to demo quality in places. When they go for heaviness the sound goes pear shaped. When they recorded the drums someone should have been looking at the mixing desk because the levels must have been in the red.

Fall Behind are from Poland but for some reason the album starts with a clip of an American voice complaining about overt control. This leads into a song called Godkiller which seems to be about the misuse of religion, a shouty tune with thrashy overtones and iffy production.

Then in comes the second song with a completely different vibe, starting off with a very MTV friendly riff over a 'swing your pants' drum track. Of course that's just the intro once the singing starts this turns into a very similar song to the first one with muffled drums and shouting.
Like most hardcore albums the singing suffers from a lack of melody so the songs can be a bit interchangeable, play the album on shuffle and see if you notice. It's not without merit though, there are some good ideas on the guitar front and you can hear that they're well played but the terrible drum production mortally wounds the song before the singing finishes it off completely.

Live I think this stuff would be less preferable to poking myself in the eye, it would be a level noise without pacing or inflection because that's how the album comes across.

The best track on the album is the last one; the drums still sound bad but there is no singing to kill it completely. Without the vocals the musicians had to come up with something else and managed to create a short but promising end segment which at least hints towards a better future should they introduce the odd vocal melody as well. Just level the drums a bit next time guys.