Moderatly good melodic metalcore.
For all the hype in their press release, Profane, at first listen, don't appear to be a particularly amazing band. While described as "unique" and a band to "change the way people listen to heavy music", for the first half of the album they play fairly predictible metalcore, albeit metalcore with some nice melodic touches. But that's all there is to it. 'The Day We Scorched the Sky' is a decidedly uneventful album until about track five. It has it's moments, such as the driving intro to 'Turning Bloodletting Into an Artform', and the same song's short drum solo. It also manages to, mercifully, avoid the worst cliches of the genre, for instance the "shouty verse/euphoric clean vocal chorus" template that makes the vast majority of metalcore unappealing to the ears of many music fans.
But the typical "melodic/heavy" style demonstrated by the likes of Killswitch Engage still crops up in the first full-length offering from Profane. However, unlike many bands, they begin to do something more with it, to avoid the metalcore-by-numbers approach. Songs such as the ballad-like "Sleep Now Complete" could, the flourishes of screamed vocals excepting, have been the work of a chest-beating hard rock band, with the emotional (not to mention angsty)and powerful vocal performance. Indeed, towards the end of the album, things take on a decidedly more laid back style than the frantic and heavy sounds of the earlier tracks. A succession of slow, but catchy tracks makes for what's definately the better half of the album: a listenable and radio friendly collection of rock songs that do nonetheless manage to sound a bit different from the metalcore norm.
As someone with a deep-seated loathing of metalcore, I found this release surprisingly enjoyable, probably because the group do make a (largely successful) effort to transcend the boundaries of the genre. For those who actually enjoy metalcore in general, I imagine this album might prove to be a very nice little surprise: complex, listenable and a little bit different. While definately an album of two halves, 'The Day We Scorched the Sky' hints at a band with considerable talent, but who've yet to fully exploit it.