Debut from Worsop metallers fails to impress
Straight outta Worksop, the impressively titled And their Eyes Were Bloodshot release their adequately titled debut EP, Prologue, which sounds a little unoriginal and dense.
This EP may have been mastered by a certain Alan Douches, the man who has worked with a slew of US bands including the likes of Atreyu, Every Time I Die and Unearth, but it appears that Mr D hasn't worked his magic on this EP.
Prologue is brim full of guttural roars and pounding drum beats, but not much else really. Sounding a little impenetrable in terms of sound and intensity, it is at times a difficult and challenging listen and not in a particularly positive way. "Man the Lifeboats" is the sound that your head might make if you were to place it in some industrial machinery and you can literally feel some massive factory blade take chunks off your face as you listen. "Who needs Romance?" also has that face melting quality about it, but you can't help feeling that all this heaviness is a little done to death both on this EP and in music in general, of late.
"Stingray stole my thunder (said the crocodile)" is a relatively bold and interesting enough opener with the title being an obvious and maybe a little unfair stab at the legendary Steve Irwin, but it is not earth shattering in its originality.
Unfortunately, the only thing that this EP shows is that the band can do heavy adequately and not much else. Although the band have only been together for eighteen months, you would think that this would move around within its genre and be a little more experimental in terms of sound, but it does not attempt to do anything original. This has also meant that some tracks do sound a little alike in terms of content and sound and with the heaviness in sound, it does not make the most inviting of listening.
As prologue by its very definition implies that there is more to come, you can't help but get the feeling that they should change tact a bit now, and that their next offering should be a little bolder and original. There are so many bands around with this sound at the moment and this isn't in any way exemplary. Although they do what they do well, sometimes it just isn't enough. There probably is a good band behind this wall of noise but it is incredibly well concealed.