HAND TO HAND — Design The End - Follow The Horizon (review)

HAND TO HAND — Design The End - Follow The Horizon album cover Album · 2009 · Metalcore Buy this album from MMA partners
2/5 ·
Pelata
Ok, there is something to be said for band’s who play this sort of Melodic Screamo music. The musicians can play, the vocalist (when he’s not enducing his own anyerism) can carry a tune and the musical arrangements take chops. So, I don’t want to sound like I can’t at least appreciate what they’re trying to do. It’s just that, overall, this kind of music is beginning to show the same kind of stagnation and monotony that the Hair Metal scene was showing in the late 80s/early 90s. Many of the bands became interchangable and now, seeing as we have the internet, these kinds of young bands are absolutely everywhere (I’m sure the Hair Metal band were too…we just didn’t have an internet to show them in their mass quantities).

Again, the guys in Hand To Hand can play. Drummers in this genre always impress me for their chops and stamina if nothing else. Vocally, I’m not a fan of the “scream until a blood vessel pops in your forehead” style and even when the singer begins to actually sing there is a sort of unappealing, juvenille air to the melodies…it’s melodic enough, it’s just also annoying. Many of the songs here are indistinguishable, at least to my ears, and if it weren’t for occasional bits of silence I would not know a new song was starting. They all carry the same “dig our chops” high-flying with screaming, dropping into a melodic chorus hook, breakdown, and back again…lather, rinse, repeat. I will say, though, that the last song, the 10-minute instrumental track “Let’s End This Album With A Party” was pretty cool…nice energy and, thankfully, no vocals…good showcase for the band showing off their obvious talent.

I can understand why younger kids could be into this. I can hear that the musicians in the band can play very well. But for all of it’s attempts at sticking melodic hooks amidst the overwrought note-storms and irritating screaming, it’s just boring. Oh, and they also lose points for the “15 minutes of silence before something stupid” at the end of the last track. That got old 15 years ago.
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