Against the Flood // Against the Flood
Rating: 1.0/5.0 —Form Above Function
Label: Siege of Amida Records
Websites: againsttheflood.co.uk
Release Dates: January 3rd, 2011
So apparently the UK has a lively metalcore and deathcore scene that is being picked up and flown around the world right now. Against the Flood is one of those bands that sits right on the border between the two genres (which are basically just one genre if you look at their girl jeans and stupid hair cuts) and who have taken from me nearly 60 minutes of my life that I will never, ever, ever, ever get back. As a punishment, I will pee on them publicly, from my blog (and wait for their stupid oaf fans, and buddies, to come here and insult me).
A while back I ripped the shit out of fellow UK metalcore band Architects for being sucky and annoying. And really, if you consider what Against the Flood is doing, Architects are artists of the highest caliber. So that should give you an idea of how good this record is(n’t). Let me start by saying that these guys have some chops! Seriously, there’s a ton of cool techy stuff on here and there’s definitely some great technical work being done on the guitars. Hell, there’s even some really great sweep picking going on and some solid riffing that should excite metal dudes. But, of course, form here is more important than function, and that really is the problem.
See, the guys from Against the Flood are checking all the metalcore boxes in order to neatly fit into a trend that is seen as selling records. The talky hardcore vocalist screaming stupid shit (like “ARE SECOND CHANCES ALWAYS ENOUGH!?” … Deep) throwing in just enough death metal vocals to be ‘tough’ and have some ‘cred’ and still having enough boring ass breakdowns to make the karate kids in the audience totally stoked. I mean, really, this is just tired and shitty and I don’t actually know how much more I can say about it.
But you know what I can say? Look at that kid in the center. I’m assuming he’s the vocalist—he’s like hardcore hip hop kid meets Poison. Really. Are metal kids going to start using hairspray again? Really?
Anyway, so this record is 20 minutes long and it’s everything you hate about deathcore and metalcore… and therefore, it fucking sucks. It’s form above function. Come back when you can write songs, dudes. And lose the vocalist with the hairspray.
