British hopeful fail to ignite...
Golf Records band The Hurt Process storm out with their own brand of melodic post-hardcore with added pop hooks. It's an interesting mixture of heavy metal, hardcore and pop/punk with influences ranging from Quicksand, Thursday and Jimmy Eat World.
First song 'Anchor' has death metal guitars and screamo vocals within the confounds of quite a good heavy punk/pop song. 'You Don't Get Gold For Second Place' and title track 'A Heartbeat Behind' follow in exactly the same vein, and perhaps this is the beginning of the bands problem. 'A Mind With Two Faces', however, gives a slow slice of emo that is perhaps a better way forward from a band that shows great potential but a lack of vision at what they are good at.
'My Scandinavian Ride' is quite frankly Death Metal gone soft. The best song here is the post-hardcore and punky influenced 'Boogie Nights In Michigan' which doesn't dwell too much on the shouty lyrics, and has the finger firmly on the pulse of a hard rocking scene that it almost feels that this is a route they ended up down accidentally.
The rantings of 'Take To You' is mind-numbing, and there are flashes of great riffs in 'Reading Into It', however it's the slow melodic early nineties throwback that is 'The Night Before The Morning After' that is interesting. With a slice of Blind Melon or a slow Alice In Chains number it flows gently like a warm breeze on a summers day.
They made an appearance at 2004's Vans sponsored Warped Tour, which for a British band is an achievement, however despite the success of previous album 'Drive By Monologue', they've not progressed any further with 'A Heartbeat Behind'. There are too many influences and the mixture is neither accessible to Death Metal fans, Post-Hardcore fans or Emo fans, and for this very reason could well alienate the band who play very well - but is there really any room out there for them??