Split EP - Split Opinions
Now how's this for a misleading title: "Stella Got Her Groove Back". What kind of song would you expect to have a title like that, eh? It could just be some funky song with some nice bassli-- never mind actually, for I know what you wouldn't expect. Ready? Drumming so fast that your arms will ache from listening to it; screaming so incomprehensible that Ben (vocals) could possibly be professing his love for flowers or simply telling you to "SHUT THE HELL UP"; and of course, patches of guitar music so atonal that Schoenberg (read: the mother AND father of atonal music) himself could be forced to rise as a zombie and start gunning down civilians. What a mind job.
And that's only Shaped By Fate - no matter how colourful the imagery I just adorned them with, they're still the underdogs to the other band that feature on this split mini-album, "The Fire In Which The Heart Resides" - Johnny Mental. This CD features three tracks from the aforementioned Shaped By Fate followed by five superior recordings from Johnny Mental. No doubt lightbulbs are going off in some of your heads - yes, this is the very same Johnny Mental that reached the final of Scuzz TV's "Demolition" - a glorified battle of the bands that D-Void were robbed of winning.
As mentioned before, Shaped By Fate's tracks feature metalcore's finest stalwarts: powerful drumming; dirty, dirty riffs and everyone's favourite: far too much throat-destroying screaming. It's just such a shame the sound producers were asleep whilst this band set their tunes down on the Master CD - the bass is non existant, and much of the music loses its power accordingly. Each of the tracks ("Stella Got Her Groove Back", "This Plague Of Mind" and "Turn To Dusk") are quite similar, relying heavily on dissonance to provide an edge to their music now that the bass has been rather cruelly castrated from the songs. Ben pleads at the end, "Don't let me down!" - perhaps he too is annoyed at the poor mixing of these songs?
After the first three tracks, we move into the "good" "half" of the EP - Johnny Mental's efforts. Johnny Mental take what Shaped By Fate have done and elevate it to new levels. For instance, they've actually got producers who like to lay the bass on thick and heavy, with less of the dissonant trebly screechings, a lá Shaped By Fate. Thank God, is all I can say about that one. Besides any mixing qualms, Johnny Mental also seem to have a much better mind for melody than Shaped By Fate. Heavy Metalcore fans will no doubt say that JM's music is somehow a lot weaker than Shaped By Fate's, but I disagree - Johnny Mental know how to rock, and do so with a passion. Stand out tracks have to be the initial rock of "Venetian Blind" - the powerful introduction to JM's musical world, and the jumpy, fast paced "Pacifier", although special mention has to go to the final track, "Outro", which nicely shows off Gareth and Malcolm's (guitars) ability to race up and down their fretboards.
The whole EP could probably be mistaken as being two "snapshots" of the same band taken from different times in their so-called "musical path". Shaped By Fate definately give hints of an earlier version of Johnny Mental - the potential and promise is there, but it lacks the polish, just like a diamond that has been freshly wrenched from its earthly womb, still untouched by a jeweller's hands. Johnny Mental are going places. Shaped By Fate will go places if they make the right decisions.