Heroes – The Compassion
Record Label: Contain Records
Release Date: September 14th, 2012
Writing reviews on AP.net can be a really cool thing. Last week, I woke up, and checked my email. I noticed I had a new PM from AP.net. I went on, and it was from one of the members of New York melodic hardcore band Heroes. I had never heard of them before, but they wanted me to review their new record The Compassion. I’ll admit, I’m not a huge fan of heavy music anymore, but I will make exceptions. I decided to listen to it, and I was mildly impressed. I will be honest, it’s not the best record I’ve ever heard in my life, but as far as for what it is, it’s great. This is a great record melodic hardcore fans, I think. I’m surprised I haven’t heard of these guys until now, because they’re pretty solid, just like this record. However, it’s more than a melodic hardcore record, and I’ll explain what that means throughout the review.
The record starts off with an intro titled “Intro.” I’ve seen this a million times, and sometimes, it works. Most of the time, it doesn’t. However, it does rather work, to a degree. It starts off very slow, with a slow guitar riff by guitarists Chris Benne, and Peter Martingano. Towards the last 15 seconds, it begins building up, and it leads right into the next track “One Last Time.” It doesn’t take long for lead vocalist Nick Vitale to begin screaming. He’s got one heck of a scream, that’s for sure. He’s not the best screamer I’ve ever heard, but he’s pretty darn strong. Another thing about this track is it sort sets up the rest of the record. Not really, because there are a few surprises here and there, but the record is only 34 minutes, so there are not many surprises. There are breakdowns, as it’s typical with a melodic hardcore, but they’re rather brief, and kept the record fresh.
As the record goes on, there are a few glaring problems I have. The first one is, most of it sounds quite similar, and it’s not just one specific thing, either. Vocalist Nick Vitate has some solid screams, but he doesn’t have much range in his voice, which does hinder it slightly. It’s not awful, but it does bother me slightly. The instrumentation itself sounds rather similar throughout as well. However, there is some variety. There are a few interludes throughout this record that are very interesting, and do provide some variety that not many hardcore bands do. There are three in total, and they all appear in the beginning, middle, and end of the record. They’re all rather slow little interludes that do slow it down a bit, but the tracks right after do pick it back up.
Overall, this record is rather generic, but it’s not terrible. People have this idea that generic is another word for bad, or awful, but it’s not always. This is one band that I do see potential in, and essentially, I really would compare this band to being The Ghost Inside’s younger brother. They have ways to go, but they’re on the right track.
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