More Of The Same On New Eyes Set To Kill Album

Metalcore band Eyes Set to Kill announced their fifth album this summer and said that it would be called Masks because they were finally taking off their mask and being able to be themselves. This is good since the band's first four albums had very little experimentation and all of the songs sounded similar. Now this is not bad, Eyes Set to Kill are a great band and they write great songs, but all of their songs are similar.
The band, fronted by Alexia Rodriquez who does clean vocals and their unclean vocalist Cisko Miranda who also does cleans sometimes, have a model for most of their songs. It's usually unclean verses, clean choruses. While there is some change, that's usually how their songs go.
On Masks there is little to no change. While there are some songs that stick out, most of the songs all sound the same. This is not to say that the songs are bad. They're all good but only a few of them stick out.
"Lost and Forgotten," "Where I Want to Be," "Surface," Little Liar," "The New Plague," Infected," "The Secrets Between" and "The Forbidden Line" all stand out and are catchy. They stand out around this sea of clean choruses and breakdowns.
"The Secrets Between" and "Where I Want to Be" are both previously on their last album, 2011's White Lotus. That is where the band make a mistake; putting older, better songs on the album.
While the album isn't the best thing that Eyes Set to Kill have done, it is a great record. It leaves behind the acoustic undertones of their previous album for 13 songs of straight aggression and heaviness. Eyes Set to Kill for all of their flaws are still a great band and they continue to make great new albums. Regardless of whether or not a band can go on making the same album five more times, that remains to be seen.

Butcher Babies Rock Out On Debut Album

Heavy Metal band Butcher Babies released their mosh pit-inducing debut album Goliath last month. The album was preceded by the single "I Smell a Massacre" as well as the band's reputation for being a gimmick, thanks in part to fromwomen Heidi Shepherd and Carla Harvey. Harvey and Shepherd are known for performing close to naked, with only black duct tape X's covering their nipples. This took away from their credibility as musicians, but with Goliath, this changed. This record is so face meltingly good that no gimmick can undo the greatness of it.
Every song is a rocker and it shows off the duel vocalist's talents. Their screams recall other female fronted band such as Otep, Kittie, In This Moment, Arch Enemy and Straight Line Stitch, while their cleans recall In This Moment, Kittie and Eyes Set to Kill. Most of the clean vocals as well the more growled harsh vocals are done by Harvey and the more high pitched, In This Moment styled screams are done by Shepherd. The music is a mix of classic heavy metal and thrash metal.
The ladies mix in their clean vocals well with their harsh screams on songs like "Magnolia Blvd," "Grim Sleeper" and the single and best song on the album "I Smell a Massacre." However on the title track, which is one of the best songs, the ladies don't sing one clean note. Screaming aggressively over the metal as fuck guitars. This approach is quickly given up on "In Denial" in which the heavenly cleans of Harvey are heard again. Going on to "Give Me Reason" the ladies sound more like Otep than they have on previous songs. The band also rock hard on "The Mirror Never Lies," which like the other songs is heavy as can be. Harvey's cleans on the chorus of this song are perhaps the best cleans on the entire record.
The next song the slower "Dead Poet." Harvey's cleans are the most prominent vocals on the song. "The Deathsurround" is a sonically different song than the rest. The vocals are different here than on other songs. The album closes with a remake of the song "Axe Wound" from their self-titled 2012 EP.
This album is quite possibly one of the best metal albums of the year so far. Butcher Babies have proved that they are much more than a pair of pretty faces. Here's to hoping the band keep up with this for years to come.

In Fear and Faith get better with time

Metalcore bands aren't very inventive. There are some bands such as A Day to Remember or In This Moment that switch things up and there are bands Eyes Set to Kill and blessthefall who release basically the same album over and over again. In Fear and Faith's third self titled album fall into the later. Not to say that that is a bad thing.
The album is surely a step up from their second album but it really doesn't do anything different. While songs such as "The Calm Before the Reform" which features David Stephens from We Came As Romans don't reinvent the wheel, they do solidify the band as good musicians.
That being said this album is definitely the best thing In Fear and Faith have done and while it doesn't open new doors for metalcore it does do things for their career.