RANDOM VIOLENCE - Demo 2012

I struggled with this one for quite a while. For one, the copy I got was damaged, which didn't help. Secondly, and this is the more important one, I'm at a bit of a loss for words over it, and not in a good way. Part of me wants to say this album is alright, and part of me wants to rip it to shreds over the sloppy playing on it and the super-annoying vocals. The one upside is the lyrics. They are written about actual things that need attention and that is certainly to be commended. Unfortunately for this band that doesn't score them anything musically.

It also doesn't help that the nice enough lyrics are delivered in such an annoying manner that it literally makes me not want to listen to it. Last album I reviewed featured poorly delivered vocals, albeit by a voice with potential for better things. With this album I just can't help thinking how much I dislike the voice of the vocalist itself. It's definitely different from what you're used to hearing from powerviolence or thrashcore or what have you but saying that this person should stick to something more familiar to the ear though is something I don't want to do, since that's a helluva boring attitude to have. Doing things differently from the norm is a positive thing and we all know why.

Doing things differenly doesn't mean doing things well though, and the vocals are one case of that. They are the only thing done in any original manner on this album though, as far as I can tell, but bear in mind the copy of the album I got was damaged so I can't really say how many seconds it skipped for me on the last track for example. Don't get me wrong though, I don't ask for originality, just keep me entertained and excited. This album however does very little for my ears. There's not much on it that's exciting in any meaningful way. In one word, the feeling it elicites for me is boredom.

Sound-wise the album is also sub-par. Of course you can get away with that in certain cases, but if so the music has to be that much better and in this case it just isn't. The guitar riffs are while listenable frankly quite boring and unoriginal and not super-well played, and while it can be just fine the bass does nothing but accompany the guitar (except for a few breaks or beginnings which sound sloppy, not because of the bassist though) and the drums sound sloppy and not quite on beat all the time. And you know how I feel about the vocals. Overall the mix is pretty weird. Fortunately the vocals aren't on top of everything else, but they also aren't buried underneath the instruments, except for the guitar, which for some reason seems to be considerably louder than everything else, always. I have no idea but it sure sounds like the album was mixed by the guitarist himself/herself.

Again, I don't quite know what to say, except meh. I guess though that with some work, this stuff could be considerably better, and seeing as this is only a demo, who knows what a more "proper" release will entail. [Still Ill]
- Kristján Friðbjörn

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