Generic if acceptable metal-core
Life was a lot simpler in the early 1980s. You had Iron Maiden, AC/DC, Black Sabbath, Saxon, Judas Priest, UFO and Def Leppard to choose from and that was about your lot. Of course, all those metal fans have grown up, had families and created a new generation of metal fans all eager to play music. Marry this with a heavy dose of corporate money making greed and suddenly you have far too many bands to go around. This brings me to In Twilight's Embrace, a Polish metal-core band whose brand of European metal-core sounds exactly like America's brand of metal-core. There's heaps of intricate and staccato riffs with monotonous screaming over the top, it's the sound we've heard so many times before. I am starting to wonder if record company PR men are really looking for the next big thing, instead content with finding next same thing.
Even though In Twilight's Embrace offer zilch in the way of originality or progression, their new release, 'Bruied in Between' is a pretty decent listen. I've heard far too many bad examples of this genre over the past couple of years, so it was nice to be able to reach the end of this album without throwing my shoes at the CD player. The whole experience kicks off with quite an exquisite piano introduction called 'Prelude: Love Enslaved.' But this genre of music is so predictable you know it's going to kick in with some blast-beats and vicious guitar licks, and this is precisely what happens in 'Set them free'. However, on this occasion the blast-beats and vicious guitar licks are pretty good which sets the song up nicely. The inevitable happens very soon as the band put aside the idea of fleshing out the really good ideas in favour of changing the riffs every ten to fifteen seconds. It's messy, disjointed and not really helped by the boring, monotone screaming of vocalist 'Darek'. Apart from a couple of deep growls, his voice is the same from the start of this disc to the end. Can you imagine if all the other instruments adopted this technique? All you would hear is one note for 4 minutes! Madness.
There are some flashes of Killswitch Engage in the music. The lead riff in the title track and 'The Darkest Crime' illustrate this perfectly. Because the band has taken their influences from the best of this genre, there is a lot of this album to enjoy. 'Still before my eyes' is a good track with a very likable harmony section at its heart. On the downside however, the songs are very much of the same cloth. I've listened to this album several times, and I still need the CD booklet and the details on Windows Media Player to help me find out whereabouts I am on the album. Although there is one exception and that is 'Passage: Farewell', which feels like a great follow on from the piano introduction. There aren't any vocals on this track, probably because Darek either can't sing normally or can't write a melody to suit such a melodic track that doesn't keep changing. Whatever the reason it's the most memorable track on offer because it breaks up the monotony and uses a great idea to it's fullest.
There's a lot here for fans of The Black Dahlia Murder or Unearth (In fact it's not that much at a measly running time of just over half an hour), and I must admit this CD is punctuated with lots of great ideas. Sadly these ideas are mixed in with the mediocre and drowned out by the usual sqwarking this type of music requires. Because these types of band are ten-a-penny at the moment, I can't see In Twilight's Embrace actually getting beyond the small club circuit. This would be a shame as they are one of the better examples of this genre, it's just that I, like so many of the CD buying public, have heard this sort of thing many times before. Please, let's move on.