Ill begins with a pulsing electronic beat before breaking into a trilling guitar lead and rollicking drums. This bleeds into a verse that blends hardcore shouts with clean singing, gilded with a cleanly-sung chorus. It’s rhythmic, it’s accessible and it’s exactly what you would expect from modern metalcore. However, as the album progresses slim streaks of the staccato, djenty approach typically attributed to modern progressive metal materialize. A number of the leads demonstrate surprising technicality and a rhythmic angularity that belie instrumental talent. Ill isn’t exactly experimental but its best moment comes at its most unpredictable. The back half of “Cursed Mind” switches gear from a repetitive lead to a down-tuned groove which itself gives way to one of the record’s best breakdowns. The surprise comes when the music cuts back into a moody, almost-pretty and quiet passage concluded with a grander vocal melody and uplifting guitar solo.
However, “Cursed Mind” highlights a majority which, by comparison, is direct, brief and written to achieve maximum immediacy. Royal Deceit offer solid, if unremarkable, songwriting with few frills even by the standards of metalcore. It would have been an interesting release 20 years ago but in 2023 it’s distinctly predictable. Predictable metalcore can be a good thing but this relies on high-quality guitar and vocal hooks. Here, the singer is more competent than excellent, not quite possessing the emotive depth or technical prowess required to emphasize the solid chorus melodies. Likewise, the guitar leads are reliably decent but rarely outstanding. The album’s predictability and songwriting simplicity mean that it becomes repetitive. You’ve heard this music before and you’ve heard it better. By the time the record reaches its last third, I struggle to focus due to its similarity to the first two-thirds. These songs aren’t really any worse but I tire of the stylistic consistency and particularly the production.
DR 5 hardly represents the most dynamic music I’ve heard but Royal Deceit have the dubious honor of sounding far more brick-walled than even this would suggest. My initial response to the muddy, loud, and unpleasant production was distaste, and my response after the entire album was repulsion. It feels like a thick rug was wrapped around the raw recorded music, and then the volume dial was increased to maximum, leaving a package that is curiously both muffled and noisy. The drums have too little stomp and the guitars have too little crunch. It takes perseverance and repeated listens to pierce the veil of the production to even begin considering the underlying music. Good production gets out of the way of the music it delivers, so if the prior sentence doesn’t indicate severe issues then I don’t know what does.
This review reads more negatively than I initially intended, but that principally flows from the offensive production. Royal Deceit improve if you leave your brain at the door, ready to mosh with their rhythmic prowess and reasonable hooks. Although this in itself indicates a lack of depth and creativity, if you dig the modern metalcore scene, Ill’s music is generally acceptable if unremarkable. There’s 20-25 minutes of decent metalcore here so I’m not quite ready to give up the young band entirely.
Rating: 2.0/5.0
DR: 5 | Format Reviewed: 320 kbps mp3
Label: Prime Collective
Websites: royaldeceit.bandcamp.com | facebook.com/royaldeceit
Releases Worldwide: August 11th, 2023
