Klatzke
03/12/09, 02:57 PM
Of Machines - As If Everything Was Held In Place
Record Label: Rise Records
Release Date: March 3, 2009
I had high hopes for Of Machines after they were signed to Rise Records. I fully expected them to release an album that showed a band full of potential and an aptitude for writing good, catchy metalcore. I was stoked for my first listen of As If Everything Was Held In Place and truly believed it would be everything I hoped it could be and more. Unfortunately, upon listening, I was left completely disappointed in a band I thought held quite a bit of potential.
While this album isn't bad by any means, it's just so terribly generic and re-hashed that I really don't know what to think of it. The band combine a perfect clone of Cove Reber's (Saosin) clean vocals with screaming and somewhat muddled structures. However, it doesn't really come off as inventive, and instead it sounds like exactly what you'd expect Burden Of a Day to sound like if they had Reber as a vocalist and pulled out some post-rock-esque instrumentation in the vein of Oceana. The vocals are so dead on it's uncanny, and while they do sound good most of the time the similarities are just too much to handle, and their clean vocalist doesn't have any sound of his own. While I've condoned quite a few generic bands in my day, this release doesn't have the push or quality to move it past that fact; it's simply forgettable no matter how much I'd rather it be otherwise.
I don't want to make it seem like the band is completely devoid of talent, but as far as having a "new" sound goes, they fail completely. There are some tracks that have impressive qualities, and they do well at building up pressure before releasing it in breakdowns.
The experimentation they incorporate is mainly in the vein of static-y electronics reminiscent of The Receiving End Of Sirens, as well as entertaining the aforementioned atmospheric instrumentation. Even these measures that most people are going to judge as groundbreaking don't cause the album to gain any creativity points, however, and while they do make some of the tracks sound somewhat interesting, I've just found myself completely underwhelmed by this release as a whole. There are tracks I like, but I've really been unable to find a reason to continue coming back to this album when I've got others on my mind.
Despite the album's numerous deficiencies, I'm sure it's probably going to catch on with quite a few people simply because it's a type of trendy metalcore. While I do applaud the band for stepping out of the norm with some of their instrumentation and such, it's still absolutely nothing new and doesn't have the saving grace of it being particularly great either. That is, had this album been phenomenal, albeit generic, it would have still seemed much more worth my anticipation. I had high hopes for this album, and I was unfortunately let down by the extremely generic vocal approach, lack of wholly impressive songs, and the overall mediocrity of the whole thing. While I contend that these guys are, in fact, plenty talented, their similarities to other bands in the genre override that, and overall, As If Everything Was Held In Place doesn't hold near the game-changing effect that I (and many others) believed it would.
Saosin; Burden Of a Day; Oceana; A Skylit Drive
myspace.com/ofmachinestheband (http://www.myspace.com/ofmachinestheband)
Record Label: Rise Records
Release Date: March 3, 2009
I had high hopes for Of Machines after they were signed to Rise Records. I fully expected them to release an album that showed a band full of potential and an aptitude for writing good, catchy metalcore. I was stoked for my first listen of As If Everything Was Held In Place and truly believed it would be everything I hoped it could be and more. Unfortunately, upon listening, I was left completely disappointed in a band I thought held quite a bit of potential.
While this album isn't bad by any means, it's just so terribly generic and re-hashed that I really don't know what to think of it. The band combine a perfect clone of Cove Reber's (Saosin) clean vocals with screaming and somewhat muddled structures. However, it doesn't really come off as inventive, and instead it sounds like exactly what you'd expect Burden Of a Day to sound like if they had Reber as a vocalist and pulled out some post-rock-esque instrumentation in the vein of Oceana. The vocals are so dead on it's uncanny, and while they do sound good most of the time the similarities are just too much to handle, and their clean vocalist doesn't have any sound of his own. While I've condoned quite a few generic bands in my day, this release doesn't have the push or quality to move it past that fact; it's simply forgettable no matter how much I'd rather it be otherwise.
I don't want to make it seem like the band is completely devoid of talent, but as far as having a "new" sound goes, they fail completely. There are some tracks that have impressive qualities, and they do well at building up pressure before releasing it in breakdowns.
The experimentation they incorporate is mainly in the vein of static-y electronics reminiscent of The Receiving End Of Sirens, as well as entertaining the aforementioned atmospheric instrumentation. Even these measures that most people are going to judge as groundbreaking don't cause the album to gain any creativity points, however, and while they do make some of the tracks sound somewhat interesting, I've just found myself completely underwhelmed by this release as a whole. There are tracks I like, but I've really been unable to find a reason to continue coming back to this album when I've got others on my mind.
Despite the album's numerous deficiencies, I'm sure it's probably going to catch on with quite a few people simply because it's a type of trendy metalcore. While I do applaud the band for stepping out of the norm with some of their instrumentation and such, it's still absolutely nothing new and doesn't have the saving grace of it being particularly great either. That is, had this album been phenomenal, albeit generic, it would have still seemed much more worth my anticipation. I had high hopes for this album, and I was unfortunately let down by the extremely generic vocal approach, lack of wholly impressive songs, and the overall mediocrity of the whole thing. While I contend that these guys are, in fact, plenty talented, their similarities to other bands in the genre override that, and overall, As If Everything Was Held In Place doesn't hold near the game-changing effect that I (and many others) believed it would.
Saosin; Burden Of a Day; Oceana; A Skylit Drive
myspace.com/ofmachinestheband (http://www.myspace.com/ofmachinestheband)