Maximum emotion no sugar.
Recently signed to Hangman's Joke, this young mostly Brit melodic metal quartet originally formed in Dubai but their debut full length has an American sound and some slick production. The majority of "The Irony of your Perfection" is really saleable mainstream stuff and relies quite heavily on standard chugga riffs and occasionally quite cheesy emo lyrics, but they manage to make everything sound a bit more fresh and exciting than many of their contemporaries because they play well, have good basic melodies and the advantage of an excellent and versatile vocalist who can manage crooning and screams in rapid succession as well as injecting a heartbreaking sexy, breathy quality into the quieter moments.
OK so they're no Thrice or Killswitch Engage; being neither as original or quirky or heavy as either band, but there is plenty of potential here and if they can just break out of the screamo box slightly they may be in danger of creating something really special. Opener 'In Loving Memory of you, despite you' one of the best tracks on the album, starts with a lovely piano refrain which suddenly breaks into heavy if familiar metal riffs and screams, but the chorus is the show stealer, it has a killer anthemic quality, as catchy and addictive as Hell is for Heroes at their best, but of course far more brutal. 'Wings for the sake of falling' uses the same trick; riff heavy, but hook laden and with a sweeping epic string sound running underneath the intensity that makes the hairs stand up on the back of your neck, they really know how to push all the right buttons.
One of the saving qualities of the album is theatrics. Perhaps the overlong cheesy song titles are a bit much but musically the OTT theatrical quality many of the tracks have just takes the emotion up a notch with the addition of moody interludes of gentle keyboard or piano; like the quiet moment of reflection between 'My last words Before it's all over' and 'Numb in a matter of screams' which does its job of drawing attention to the intensity and complexity of the duel guitar that follows. There's definitely plenty of song writing savvy behind these highly charged tunes, you have to admire the way they manage to pound the listener into emotional submission, and at the same time, they have something really honestly likeable; it might be the incredible amount of energy they pump into each tune combined with the fact that they play with plenty of conviction.